



























Class__ B_2,l£l 

Book_Hk_ 


SMITHSONIAN!.. DEPOSIT 








% 































MAINE DE BIRAN’S 


PHILOSOPHY OF WILL 



A THESIS 


Presented to the University Faculty of Cornell University 


for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 


by 


NATHAN ELBERT TRUMAN, A.M. 


X flu ¥orft 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 

I904 



¥> 2- 4 

It 


Press of 

THE New Era Printing Company, 
Lancaster, Pa. 


PREFACE. 


No special account of Maine de Biran’s philosophy has before 
appeared in English, and the sources are rendered somewhat dif¬ 
ficult by the author’s highly involved style. It has seemed, there¬ 
fore, that a somewhat extended exposition of his work may prove 
useful. In the composition of this monograph my object has been 
two-fold : to give a statement of Biran’s system, and to show his 
exact position in the history of speculative thought. As a result 
of careful investigation, I have found it necessary to call attention 
to the unitary character of the system, which, as a matter of fact, 
centers around the single idea — will. This conclusion is, of 
course, opposed to the view of Naville, who in his introduction 
to the CEuvres ineelites divides Biran’s work into three sharply 
distinguished periods. I am convinced, however, that this divi¬ 
sion rests on insufficient grounds. For in the idea of activity is 
to be found the keynote of the entire philosophy. This idea is 
clearly evident in the writings assigned by Naville to the earlier 
and the later periods, as well as in the more important works that 
were written during the intervening years. 

On the whole, it may seem surprising that I have not emphasized 
more strongly the importance of Biran’s philosophy. It is per¬ 
haps unusual in a work of this kind to minimize the significance 
of the subject. However that may be, I have to confess that the 
motive which led me to begin my study, the expectation of find¬ 
ing elements of permanent value in Biran’s philosophy based on 
frequent references to him as ‘ the French Kant,’ has scarcely 
been realized by my subsequent investigation. Even with the 
most sympathetic interpretation, Biran cannot be placed among 
philosophers of the first rank. Kant’s great significance does 
not consist merely in his emphasis on the activity of mind against 
the empiricists, but rather in the fact that he shows that the 
activity in which the nature of mind is expressed is universal and 
objective in character. Biran, however, remains at the point of 

iii 


IV 


view of empiricism ; for his epistemology is developed from the sub¬ 
jective psychological fact of will, and continues relative to the end. 
The universal and necessary character of causality is left unex¬ 
plained. His psychology aims at being introspective and factual, 
but is lost in a bewildering mass of abstractions. I have shown 
that he stands for a position which is neither a third view correla¬ 
tive with empiricism and rationalism nor a synthesis of these two 
recognized systems, but rather an extension of the former — a 
development of the Locke-Condillac school, yet a development 
that is still on the same epistemological plane. 

Finally it should be noted that my conclusions in regard to 
Biran’s relation to subsequent philosophical positions refer exclu¬ 
sively to the logical connection of his ideas, and not to his indirect 
influence, which was certainly very great, but which I have made 
no attempt to estimate. With this reservation, my results indicate 
that his effect on later thought, e. g., on that of Cousin or of 
Renouvier, was not extensive. 

In working out this subject I have received most valuable ad¬ 
vice and suggestions from Professor J. E. Creighton, under whom 
I had been studying during the time devoted to the composition 
of the monograph, and from Professor Ernest Albee, who very 
kindly read my manuscript at an early stage. 


Bainbridge, N. Y. 


N. E. T. 


CONTENTS. 

Section. Page. 

I. Life and Works . i 

II. Objections to Naville’s View of Biran’s De¬ 
velopment . 3 

III. Biran’s Relation to Earlier Thinkers : Locke, 

Condillac, Kant, and Reid. 6 

IV. Psychological Basis of Biran’s Philosophy. 22 

V. Deduction of the Categories. 30 

VI. Divisions of the Psychology. 41 

VII. Affective System. 44 

VIII. Sensitive System. 47 

IX. Perceptive System. 51 

X. Reflective System. 59 

XI. Comparison of Biran’s Psychologie with Condil¬ 
lac’s Traite des sensations . 69 

XII. Ethics and ^Esthetics. 72 

XIII. Religion. 78 

XIV. Biran’s Relation to Subsequent Thinkers : Cousin, 

Comte, Renouvier, and Fouillee. 81 

Bibliography. 91 

Index. 93 


V 






































































































































































































































































































SECTION I. 


Life and Works. 

Maine de Biran was regarded by Cousin as “ the first French 
metaphysician of our time.” 1 Two reasons are sufficient to ex¬ 
plain why this estimate was not made earlier or more generally 
accepted. Biran was not, like his great contemporary Kant, a 
teacher of philosophy. His career, as far as it was public, was 
almost entirely in the field of politics. To the men of his time 
he was better known as a statesman than as a philosopher. But 
the most important cause which contributed to his failure to gain 
early recognition was the fact that he published very little work. 
He was never quite satisfied with the form in which he had ex¬ 
pressed his thought. The result was that his principal writings 
were left unfinished. Adequate material for estimating the value 
of his system was provided only by posthumous editions of his 
works. 

The life of Biran was uneventful. He was born November 
29, 1766, and died July 20, 1824. His father was a physician 
of the town of Bergerac, in the southwestern part of France. 
He was educated in the neighboring town of Perigueux, where 
he studied Condillac’s philosophy under the direction of the 
doctrinaires. In 1785 he became a life-guardsman, but early in 
October of that year was wounded in the arm. He then went 
to Grateloup and remained there during the Reign of Terror. 
Subsequently he held several administrative offices in the prov¬ 
ince of Dordogne. But in 1809 he was chosen a member of the 
legislative assembly; and after 1812 he established his residence 
permanently at Paris. He was a member of the commission 
which took advantage of the reverse that Napoleon had sus¬ 
tained in Russia to demand guarantees of the peace of Europe 
and the liberties of the French citizens. After the Restoration, 
Biran was a member of the Chamber of Deputies until his death, 

1 Maine de Biran, CEuvres Philosophiques , Vol. I, p. xi. 


I 


2 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


except in the single session 1817. He voted at first with the 
liberals, but afterwards with their opponents. The change was 
due not to inconsistency, but to a desire to support the royal 
power which was in his opinion the only safeguard against 
anarchy or despotism. 

Biran’s first philosophical work was the Influence de Vhabitude y 
which, in 1802, won for him the prize offered by the Institute of 
France. Three years later he received another prize from the 
same source, for his Decomposition de la pensee . In 1807 he re¬ 
ceived special mention by the Berlin Academy for his Memoire 
sur Vaperception interne immediate . Finally, in 1811, he received 
the prize from the academy of Copenhagen for his Memoire sur 
les rapports du physique et du moral de l *homme . The first essay, 
together with an anonymous Examen des legons de philosophie de 
Laromiguiere in 1817, and Une exposition de la doctrine de Leib¬ 
nitz in 1819, 1 were the principal works which he gave to the 
public during his life. But to appreciate the system as a whole, 
the Essai sur les fondements de la psychologie and the Nouveaux 
essais d 'anthropologic, which were first edited by E. Naville in 
1859, are indispensable. The first may be called Biran’s master¬ 
piece. This work, which was begun in 1811, was incomplete 
when Biran went to Paris and was developed at his leisure during 
several succeeding years. In the Introduction, the author says 
he intended to unite the three prize essays into a work more sys¬ 
tematic and more carefully elaborated than the writings which he 
had presented to the various societies. He was led to adopt this 
plan from the fact that the three essays were the same in idea, dif¬ 
fering only in the degree of development and in the form in which 
the idea was expressed. 2 The Nouveaux essais d'anthropologie 
(1823-24) is a fragment; but is very important, since it embodies 
the final expression of the author’s philosophy of religion. This 
work reproduces many of the ideas in the Psychologie , and thus 
clearly shows the internal connection in all Biran’s philosophy. 

1 In the Biographie Universelle, Vol. 23. 

2 Cf CEuvres inedites, publiees par Naville, Vol. I, pp. 34-35. 


SECTION II. 


Objections to Naville’s View of Biran’s Development. 

At the outset it should be said that under the title, “ Philo¬ 
sophy of Will,” I do not limit myself either to the period or 
to the characteristics of Maine de Biran’s work, which that name 
might suggest to one who was familiar with Naville’s exposition. 
In the Nouveaux essais there is a classification of the observed 
facts of human nature, which Naville takes as a key to three suc¬ 
cessive stages in the thought of the philosopher. Biran finds an 
animal life that is characterized by impressions, appetites, and 
movements, of physiological origin, and subject to the law of 
necessity ; a human life resulting from the appearance of free will 
and self-consciousness ; and a life of the spirit which begins when 
the soul frees itself from the rule of the lower tendencies and turns 
to God, there to find repose. On the analogy of this classifica¬ 
tion, which is taken to indicate Biran’s development, Naville has 
described the system under three divisions: — a stage (i 794-1804) 
in which Biran is influenced by the work of Condillac and agrees 
with Cabanis and de Tracy in regarding sense impressions as the 
origin of thought; a philosophy of will (1804-1818) when Biran 
develops with all its consequences the fact of the activity of 
mind ; and finally (1818-1824) a philosophy of religion. 1 Favre 
agrees with Naville on this point. “ Maine de Biran passed from 
the sensationalism of Condillac to a doctrine based on the self, 
and finally reached a third phase in which he gave the self a sup¬ 
port : God.” 2 Although Naville does not regard these divisions 
as absolute, since he recognizes that the first period contained in 
germ the principles which became explicit in the second period, 
and that early in the development of the philosophy of will there 
were tendencies apparent which indicated the mystical character 
of Biran’s later thought; yet so much importance is attached to 
the distinctions that they determine the form of the exposition. 

1 Op . cit., I, pp. v-viii. 

2 Essai sur la metaphysique et la morale de Maine de Biran , p. 6. 

3 


4 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


While admitting the practical ["convenience of this division, I 
think that it conveys an erroneous impression of the relations of 
the several parts of Biran’s work. In the principal essay of the 
first period (1794-1804), the Influence de l habitude , we already 
find the idea really fundamental to Biran’s philosophy. The 
significance of the consciousness of effort and of will is here 
clearly stated. Only by a voluntary movement which meets a 
resistance, that is, by an effort which is a relation between a sub¬ 
ject and a limit, do we gain a basis for consciousness of self and 
knowledge of the external world. A single passage will show 
how far Biran was removed from the philosophy of Condillac 
which Naville makes the dominant element in the first period. 

“ Effort necessarily carries with it the perception of a relation 
between the being which moves, or which wills to move, and 
some object which is opposed to the movement. Without a sub¬ 
ject or a will that determines the movement, and without a term 
which resists, there is no effort. And without effort there is no 
knowledge or perception of any kind.” 1 

In view of this and similar passages, we may regard the first 
period not so much as a distinct stage in the thought of the phil¬ 
osopher as an incomplete expression of the one idea of conscious 
activity which came to clear light in the second period. The 
doctrines which Naville takes as characteristic of the first stage 
were not the results of Biran’s own thought, but rather the in¬ 
heritance which he received from the school of Condillac. They 
were the subject matter, not the product, of his early philosophi¬ 
cal activity. 

Merten notes the fact that the notion of effort appears in the 
first pages of the essay on habit; but he says : “ It is easy to see 
that it is only a question here of effort conceived as the correla¬ 
tive term of the impression.” 2 But if “impression” is taken to 
mean an effect produced on the organism by something entirely 
external and foreign to the organism, we find that effort is not 
always correlated with impression even in the essay on habit. 
For example, Biran says : “We cannot doubt that the educa- 


1 CEuvresphilosophiques , Vol. I, p. 27. 

2 Etude critique sur Maine de Biran , p. 9. 


OBJECTIONS TO NAVILLE’S VIEW 


5 


tion of what are usually considered merely as the sense organs 
begins only by the development of their individual or associated 
activity.” 1 It will be noticed that Biran says ‘education,’ not 
‘ existence ’ : the organism is here regarded as susceptible to im¬ 
pression prior to any experience of effort. If, on the other hand, 
by impression is meant the consciousness that the will meets a 
resistance, effort is correlated with impression not only in Biran’s 
earlier, but also in his later, work. Similarly, the distinction of 
the third from the second period is due to a change in the sphere 
of application, rather than in the essential character of the prin¬ 
ciple. In the philosophy of will the principle is applied to the 
individual. In the philosophy of religion as far as it is a self-con¬ 
sistent system, the principle of conscious activity is considered 
also in extra-individual relations. At the beginning, Biran was 
exclusively interested in a psychological account of mind, and 
only at a later date did he take up the questions concerning 
man’s wider relations to society and the world. 2 Even at this 
later period these more fundamental problems never received 
adequate treatment. But this point will be worked out in more 
detail after we have given a general statement of his system. 

Accordingly, in the treatment of Biran’s philosophy of will, we 
shall not limit the consideration to the period indicated by Naville’s 
division (1804-1818), but shall devote some attention to the 
earlier writings and also to the later development of the philos¬ 
ophy. It will, of course, remain true, however, that our study 
will have an especial reference to the second period, since it is 
here that Biran’s ideas are most clearly stated, and that his views 
have most significance for the history of philosophy. This is the 
period of his most systematic and extended work, the Essai sur 
les fondements de la psychologie . 

1 CEuvres ph ilosophiques, I, p. 99. 

2 Gabriel Tarde has recently pointed to this individualistic feature. Maine de Biran 
found that the “ experiences of touch, sight, and hearing, in which it (the child) felt 
itself at once subject and object, stood out in high relief from the ordinary impressions 
of touch acting upon foreign substances, and from the usual impressions of sight and 
hearing. . . . But what Maine de Biran did not see is this : That stranger still and 
standing out yet more sharply on the background of our external perceptions, is our 
perceptions of other people.” Interpsychology. International Quarterly ,Vol. VII, 
No. I, p. 62. 


SECTION III. 


Biran's Relation to Earlier Thinkers : Locke, Condillac, 
Kant, and Reid. 

Before considering Maine de Biran’s philosophy in detail, it is 
well briefly to review the work of his direct predecessors in 
reference to the special points in which their opinions are related 
to the principle which he makes ultimate. This reference will 
show the nature of the philosophical thought which was domi¬ 
nant in France in his time, and also the specific manner in 
which he reacted against the current sensationalism; it will 
enable us to estimate his position at the beginning of his career, 
and also to determine the extent of his development. Comparison 
with the historical environment will lend distinctness to his lead¬ 
ing ideas and will make it possible to determine more exactly the 
significance of their application in his system. With this end in 
view we shall attempt to trace the idea of the activity of the self 
as it is found in the work of Locke and of Condillac. But in 
this connection the treatment can be no more than a mere outline ; 
and naturally cannot include even the mention of many impor¬ 
tant elements in the views of these philosophers. 

At this point we may notice a definition of sensationalism. 1 
Cousin, who found it congenial and advantageous 2 to call himself 
a disciple of Biran, brought the name into use. With him the 
term designated the least developed of the four common philo¬ 
sophical positions. The three types of thought correlative with 
it were idealism, skepticism, and mysticism. 3 He employed it to 
characterize the school of Condillac. But in a wider sense it has 
been applied to various thinkers, sometimes to denote a material¬ 
istic metaphysics, at other times an empirical epistemology, or 
finally a hedonistic ethics. Especially in the second of these 
senses the term was applied to the views of Condillac and in a 

1 Cf. Beaulavon’s definition in La grande encyclopedic. 

2 Picavet, article Biran in ibid. 

3 Cf. Cousin’s History of Modern Philosophy (translated by O. W. Wight), Vol. 
II, Lecture IV. 


6 


biran’s relation to earlier thinkers 7 

lesser degree to those of Locke. The epistemological aspect of 
these systems is important in relation to Biran. 

Locke could accept without hesitation the empirical dictum, 
Nihil est in intellectu quod non priiis fuerit iu sensu. But a care¬ 
ful consideration of his account of experience reveals the pres¬ 
ence of self-activity in his theory of knowledge. All the materi¬ 
als of knowledge and reason come from experience. This 
experience, however, includes the observation not only of “ ex¬ 
ternal sensible objects” but of the “internal operations of our 
minds.” 1 This “perception of the operations of our own mind 
within us,” the second “fountain from which experience furnish- 
eth the understanding with ideas,” is named specifically Reflection, 
and “ though it is not sense as having nothing to do with external 
objects, yet it is very like it (sense) and might properly enough 
be called internal sense” 2 It is evident that, for Locke, the 
material derived from reflection has at least equal value with the 
products of sensation. The mind “ observes its own actions . . . 
and takes from thence other ideas which are as capable to be the 
objects of its contemplation as any of those it received from foreign 
things.” From reflection we derive the idea of perception and 
of will. “The power of thinking is called the understanding, 
and the power of volition is called the will.” 3 Besides these 
simple ideas and their various modes there are other ideas that 
may be derived from reflection, e. g., power. We observe “in 
ourselves that we can at pleasure move several parts of our bodies 
that were at rest.” 4 Power is classified as active and passive. 
While ideas of both active and passive power are derived from 
our experience of the external world, “ our senses do not afford 
us so clear and distinct an idea of active power, as we have from 
reflection on the operations of our minds.” 5 

In comparing Locke with Biran, it is very important to notice 
his conception of will. In the chapter on power, he makes will 
and understanding examples of power. In regard to the first he 

1 Essay Concerning Human Understanding, II, Ch. i, § 2. 

*Ibid., II, Ch. i, §4. 

* Ibid., II, Ch. VI. 

'Ibid., II, Ch. VII, §8. 

* Ibid., II, Ch. XXI, §4. 


8 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


says : “We find in ourselves a power to begin or to forbear, con¬ 
tinue or end several actions of our minds and motions of our 
bodies, barely by a thought or preference of the mind ordering, 
or, as it were, commanding the doing or not doing such or such 
a particular action. This power which the mind has thus to 
order the consideration of any idea, or . . . the motion of any 
part of the body ... in any particular instance is what we call 
will.” 1 These powers of mind, which are sometimes called 
faculties, should not be supposed “ to stand for some real beings 
in the soul that performed those actions.” 2 The nature of the 
will is also evident from the treatment of the question of freedom. 
The agent is at liberty to follow the preference of his mind; but 
to ask if the will has freedom is to ask if one power has another 
power.” 3 Volition “is an act of the mind directing its thought 
to the production of any action, and thereby exerting its power to 
produce it,” 4 while “freedom consists in the dependence of the 
existence ... of any action upon our volition of it.” 5 

The secondary place which the will holds in Locke’s scheme is 
further shown by a consideration of his view of spirit. Finite 
spirit is one of the three varieties of substance, yet in the mental 
operations of thinking, reasoning, fearing, etc,, which we refer to 
a spiritual substrate “ we have as clear a notion of the substance 
of spirit as we have of body.” 6 In the section on the intuitive 
knowledge of our own existence, Locke is so far from making 
will the core of being that he does not even mention it as one of 
the forms of consciousness in which we find direct and indisput¬ 
able evidence of existence, although he would no doubt be will¬ 
ing to include it as coordinate with the “ I think, I reason, I feel 
pleasure and pain ” and “ I doubt.” 7 Finally, it is not the will 
that makes the self as in Biran. “ Nothing but consciousness can 
unite remote existences into the same person : the identity of sub- 


1 Op. cit., II, Ch. XXI, § 5. 

2 ibid., II, Ch. XXI, § 6. 

* Ibid., II, Ch. XXI, § 16. 

Ibid., II, Ch. XXI, § 28. 

5 Ibid., II, Ch. XXI, § 27. 

* Ibid., II, Ch. XXIII, § 5. 

' Ibid., IV, Ch. IX, § 3. 


biran’s relation to earlier thinkers 


9 


stance will not do it; for whatever substance there is, however 
framed, without consciousness there is no person.” 1 

In the system of Condillac, there is presented a form of empiri¬ 
cism which differs in many respects from that of Locke and which 
is especially important in the present connection. The Traite des 
sensations appeared in 1754. It is the aim of the author to show 
that all knowledge is derived from sensation. By means of sen¬ 
sations the soul is modified and all its knowledge and faculties 
are developed. The problem here is not so much the nature of 
the mind as the character and origin of mental operations. With 
reference to the philosophy of Locke, Condillac makes the follow¬ 
ing criticism: “The greater part of the judgments which are 
united to all sensation escaped him [Locke]. He did not realize 
that we must learn to touch, to see, and to hear, etc. All the 
faculties of the soul appeared to him as innate qualities.” 2 Reflec¬ 
tion is not a source of ideas coordinate with sensation. Locke 
did not carry his analysis far enough. “ The sensations after 
having been attention, comparison, judgment, finally become 
reflection.” 3 It is not our purpose to trace the system of trans¬ 
formed sensations as they are variously related to the original 
sensation, which Condillac builds up in describing the developing 
consciousness of his statue. But with reference to Biran it is 
necessary to consider, at least very briefly, the place of desire and 
will in the view of the author of the Traite des sensations. 

The sensations from the first have an affective quality. While 
the statue is for itself nothing more than the single sensation to 
which it attends, that sensation is agreeable or disagreeable. Ex¬ 
perience is pleasant or unpleasant even before there is any com¬ 
parison of experiences. Pain cannot make the statue desire a 
state that it does not know. The first sensation, however agree¬ 
able or disagreeable it is, cannot lead to desire. 4 Only when the 
statue notices that it can cease to be what it is and become what 
it has been, will desire arise from a painful state. 5 Desire is the 

'Op. cit., II, Ch. XXVII, §23. 

2 Traite des sensations. Extrait raisonne , pp. 6 and 7 (Houel ed.). 

* Ibid ., p. 19. 

« Cf. ibid., I, Ch. II, § 3. 

5 Cf. ibid., I, Ch. II, § 4. 


10 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


activity of the faculties of the soul when they are directed upon 
a thing of which we feel the need. It presupposes the idea of 
something better than what is at present existent, and also a 
judgment of the difference of two successive states. 1 

With Biran will is absolutely distinct from desire, with Condil¬ 
lac it is a further development of desire. The memory of having 
satisfied some desires gives the hope of being able to satisfy 
others. Although the outcome is not certain, confidence in¬ 
creases in proportion as the need is felt to be great. The statue 
then does not limit itself to desiring; but it wills. Will is “an 
absolute desire, that is, a desire of such a nature that we think 
the thing desired is in our power.” 2 

Personality is not constituted by the activity of the will as in 
Biran, but is dependent upon memory. With the first sensation 
there is no personality ; but with a change of sensation the self 
“judges that it is the same which has existed before, in another 
manner, and it says * I.’ ” 3 This consciousness of self is so far 
from being dependent on will that it is even antecedent to desire. 
“ Before being able to say ‘ I desire ’ one must be able to say 
‘ I.’ ” 2 The sense of touch is a unique form of sensation. It is 
the first in importance in the animal life. % Condillac names touch 
the fundamental feeling. He even identifies it with personality. 
This feeling and the ego of the statue are “ only one thing in 
origin.” 4 It is by this sense that the statue discovers its body 
and learns that there is an external world. This result is effected 
by movement; but contrary to Biran’s theory, the movement by 
which we discover the non-ego is involuntary. It is determined 
by the pleasant or unpleasant character of sensation ; but the 
organism reacts without any plan. Prevision is unnecessary, 
obedience to nature alone is sufficient. In consequence of the 
organization of the statue, its muscles move its limbs on the oc¬ 
currence of an unpleasant stimulus “ and it moves without a plan 
as even without knowing that it moves.” 5 

1 Cf Op. cit., I, Ch. Ill, §§ i and 2. 

2 Ibid., I, Ch. Ill, §9. 

3 Ibid., I, Ch. VI, §2. 

*Ibid., II, Ch. I, §3. 

* Ibid., II, Ch. IV, §2. 


biran’s relation to earlier THINKERS I I 

With the discovery of something beyond the self, which is 
brought about through the sense of touch, the statue finds that 
the essential character of each sensation is that it leads to some 
knowledge. This reference beyond itself transforms the sensa¬ 
tion into an idea. “ Every impression which conveys knowledge 
is an idea.” 1 Knowledge is thus independent of volition. It is 
the final result of the transformation of the sensation. In the 
beginning the sensation had an affective attribute, but not voli¬ 
tional character ; and this last step in the development which 
changes sensation to idea is effected by the influence of an exter¬ 
nal stimulus upon a purely passive organism. 

Although we cannot doubt the existence of body to which we 
must refer sensible qualities, yet we are quite cut off from the 
hope of any real knowledge of the object. For “considering the 
origin of ideas it is clear that they present to our statue nothing 
but qualities variously combined. The statue perceives, for ex¬ 
ample, solidity, extension, divisibility, figure, and motion united 
in all that it touches ; and it has consequently the idea of body. 
But to the question, What is a body ? it can only answer, it is 
there, that is to say, you will always find there, solidity, extension, 
divisibility, and figure.” 2 The words being and substance are 
devoid of positive significance. Our knowledge is sufficient for 
our needs. An intuitive knowledge of the reality of the self, 
which Locke finds by reflecting on the operations of the mind, 
and which Biran finds in the consciousness of effort, is unneces¬ 
sary in the system of Condillac. 

The important characteristic of the system, for us, is the fact 
that in this account of origins, Condillac does not make the will 
fundamental. The will together with memory, comparison, re¬ 
flection, etc., is derived from an original, affectively qualified sen¬ 
sation. Knowledge of the not-self does not depend upon will, 
but the reverse is rather true, since will is a form of desire, and 
desire implies knowledge of the not-self. This difference in the 
treatment of will is the essential distinction between Condillac 
and Biran. We shall see later that there is a striking similarity 

1 Op. cit ., II, Ch. VIII, § 28 . 

2 Ibid., IV, Ch. VI, § 9 . 


I 2 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


between their forms of exposition and also in their explanations 
of important points. 

From Condillac we proceed to consider briefly the form of 
contemporary empiricism, with which our philosopher was most 
closely connected. Maine de Biran’s first important work was a 
study of the influence of habit on the various modes of conscious 
activity. Destutt de Tracy was chairman of the committee which 
awarded the prize to this essay. He was also the leading repre¬ 
sentative of the idealogists. In 1796 he had invented this name 
to mark out what he and his friends believed to be the proper 
line of philosophical activity. Metaphysics was discredited, in 
their opinion, because it applied to researches on the nature of 
being and in regard to the origin and first cause of things, which 
they held to be useless. Psychology meant the science of the 
soul and also referred to first causes. Idealogy, on the contrary, 
treated questions of origin as unanswerable. Whether we study 
within or without ourselves all we can hope to accomplish is to 
acquire a deeper knowledge of the laws of nature. Idealogy 
adopted purely scientific methods of research. It aimed to be 
the basis of grammar, logic, ethics, pedagogy, and social science. 
By exclusive attention to the empirical study of mind, de Tracy 
hoped to develop a system which should be more firmly estab¬ 
lished and more fruitful in results than the pre-revolutionary phi¬ 
losophy had been. Next to Destutt de Tracy the most important 
of the idealogists was an intimate friend of Biran, named Cabanis, 
who was especially distinguished for his physiological researches. 

In the essay on habit, Maine de Biran begins with this essenti¬ 
ally epistemological view. How closely he is allied to the 
idealogists in method and purpose, can be seen from his own 
statement of his position in the introduction. “ In all that is to 
follow, I have no other intention than to investigate and analyze 
effects as we can know them, either by reflecting on what we 
experience in the exercise of our senses and different faculties, or 
by studying the conditions or the play of the organs on which 
this exercise depends. I have tried to unite, in certain respects at 
least, idealogy and physiology.” 1 Again he says : “ We know 
1 CEuvres philosophiques, Vol. I, p. 16. 


biran’s relation to earlier thinkers 13 

nothing of the nature of forces. They are manifest to us only 
by their effects. The human mind observes these effects, traces 
their analogies, and calculates their relations when they are sus¬ 
ceptible of measure; this is the limit of its power.” 1 

In order to determine the influence of habit, Maine de Biran 
finds it necessary to state his general view of the faculties and 
operations of the understanding. This is fortunate, as it gives 
data by which we can make out the relation of his early position 
to that of Locke and of Condillac. With the earlier philosophers 
Biran believes that the intellectual faculties derive everything 
from sensation, or by receiving impressions . 2 “ The faculty of 
receiving impressions is the first and most general of all that 
occur in the living organism.” 3 The impression is the result of 
the action of an object on an animate being. The object, whether 
internal or external, is the cause of the impression. Impression 
has the same value as sensation in the ordinary acceptation of 
that term. The impression varies for consciousness according to 
which of the particular sense organs mediates the modification. 
And in this respect the organism is a constituent factor in all 
sensations. 

There are, however, certain further operations of thought which 
cannot be explained by a comparison of the products of the vari¬ 
ous sense organs. This fact leads Biran to postulate a further 
principle of classification, according to which impressions are 
either active or passive. When we perceive a modification of 
any particular kind in consciousness and have no power over the 
modification, the impression is passive. Even in this case the 
experience is not a mechanical result of the stimulus. The sense 
organ by its specific activity determines the character of the sen¬ 
sation. The activity occurs within the self, but without the 
direction of the self. In the case of voluntary movement, we 
have a totally different kind of experience. In moving the arm, 
for example, after we abstract from every impression of the sort 
above described which results from the movement, we have left 
an impression of an entirely different nature. Here the self cre- 

1 Op. cit., Vol. I, p. 17. 

2 Cf. ibid., Vol. I, pp. 15 and 16. 

3 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 18. 


14 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


ates its own modification. It can begin, leave off, or vary the 
modification. And consciousness apart from the passive impres¬ 
sions gives an evidence of the modifications. 

The nature of the organism is such that there is an intimate 
connection between the faculty of mere sensation and the faculty 
of movement. They are constituent factors in almost all experi¬ 
ence. With few exceptions the impressions have a mixed char¬ 
acter ; they are made up of sensitive and motor activity, and are 
active in one relation and passive in another. The ratio of the 
movement and the feeling varies. When the feeling is very 
prominent the individual is not conscious of the accompanying 
movement and the impression is passive. To this form Biran ap¬ 
plies the name sensation. If the motor element is prominent, or 
even if it stands in such a degree of equilibrium that it cannot be 
eclipsed, the individual is active and can compare himself with 
others. To impressions which have these characteristics Biran 
gives the name perceptions. In each of the sense organs there 
is a particular relation of the two factors. Classified in a graded 
order according to the decreasing prominence of the motor factor, 
we have the sense of touch, vision, auditory sensation correlated 
with the vocal faculty, the sense of taste, and the sense of smell, 
and finally the impressions received from the- internal parts of 
the body which can be called pure sensations . 1 

To summarise the positions of Locke, Condillac, and Biran, we 
may say that each makes knowledge dependent upon experience. 
But Locke begins with a mind which derives its experience from 
the two-fold source, sensation and reflection. And under reflec¬ 
tion are found perception and will as modes of activity. More¬ 
over, consciousness is a conditio sine qua non of perception and will. 
Condillac builds up perception, will, and consciousness in general 
from the action of a stimulus on a purely passive mind. Will is 
dependent upon desire, and desire in turn is dependent upon the 
affective attribute of sensation. Perception of the non-ego is gained 
through a unique quality or the sense of touch. Biran discovers 
in the original impressions or irtaterials of experience an active and 
a passive factor. It is the active, that is, the volitional element 
1 Cf. op. cit ., Vol. I, pp. 21-25. 


biran’s relation to earlier thinkers 15 

which distinguishes perception from mere sensation and which is 
thus the basis of consciousness. 

The development of this idea of an active empirical factor is 
the characteristic phase of his system. He identifies the self 
with the feeling of effort. It is by making this perceived self a 
fact rather than an idea that he distinguishes his system from all 
forms of rationalism, which he regards as based on abstract ideas. 
By emphasis on the “ inner ’’.and consequently necessary charac¬ 
ter of this fact he differentiates his position from that of empiri¬ 
cism. The categories of thought are derived from the nature of 
the primitive fact, and his psychology is an account of the rela¬ 
tion in which the self discovered in effort stands to the physio¬ 
logical system with which it is connected. 

In this connection we may note the relation in which Biran 
stood to Kant. The direct debt of the French to the German 
philosopher was very slight. 1 The inaugural dissertation of 1770 
was the only one of Kant’s works which Biran studied in the 
original. 2 Biran’s own estimate of the relation is valuable, espe¬ 
cially since he did not, as was the case in reference to the system 
of Condillac, over-emphasize the disparity between his own posi¬ 
tion and that which he criticizes. He says : “ Kant occupies him¬ 
self with the classification or with the logical order of the means 
(instruments ) of knowledge, rather than with the real analysis of 
the elements of that knowledge itself.” The unitary subject and 
the multiple object “ are, in his view, absolutely undivided and in¬ 
divisible in inner and outer experience; for the object can be con¬ 
ceived only under the forms of space and time which are inherent 
in the subject . . . , and the subject . . . cannot be known, 
originally, by itself, without the representation of some object.” 
Again, he says : “ The subject and object are,” for Kant, “ only 
two abstractions, no real or positive knowledge belongs to either 
the one or the other,” yet “ all reality consists only in the union 
of these two abstracts elements.” 3 The critical philosophy by 

1 The principal sources of Biran’s knowledge of Kant were, probably, Gerando’s 
Histoire comparee des systhnes (1804) first edition, and the second volume of Ancil- 
lon’s Melanges. Cf. CEuvres inedites , Vol. I, p. 166. 

2 Kiihtmann, Maine de Biran , p. 58. 

3 CEuvres inedites , Vol. I, pp. 167-8. 


i6 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


investing every sensation with space and time which are the in¬ 
herent forms of sensibility, “ makes no distinction between the 
different kinds of sensations, inner and outer, or the two sorts of 
elements in a single complete sensation,” 1 the representative and 
the unrepresentative elements which occur now singly and now 
together. It is clear that for Biran the subject-object relation is 
psychological while for Kant it is epistemological. 

We may easily work out objections to Biran’s philosophy from 
the Kantian point of view. The self as a fact of immediate per¬ 
ception admittedly contains an empirical factor. Therefore any 
deductive account of the principle of knowledge based upon this 
self must be devoid of the character of absolute necessity. “ If our 
knowledge of thinking beings in general, so far as it is derived 
from pure reason, were founded on more than the cogito , and if 
we made use at the same time of observations on the play of our 
thoughts and the natural laws of the thinking self, derived from 
them, we should have before us an empirical psychology, which 
would form a kind of physiology of the internal sense, and perhaps 
explain its manifestations, but would never help us to understand 
such properties as do not fall under any possible experience (as, 
for instance, simplicity), or to teach apodictically anything touching 
the nature of thinking beings in general.” 2 If, however, we pass 
over this objection and provisionally admit the validity of deduc¬ 
tions from the psychological self, we find the same difficulty in 
Biran’s system which Kant finds in rational psychology in gen¬ 
eral, that is, “ reason imposes upon us an apparent knowledge 
only, by representing the constant logical subject of thought as 
the knowledge of the real subject in which that knowledge 
inheres. Of that subject, however, we have not and cannot have 
the slightest knowledge, because consciousness is that which alone 
changes representation into thoughts, and in which, therefore, as 
the transcendental subject, all our perceptions must be found. 
Besides this logical meaning of the I, we have no knowledge of 
the subject in itself, which forms the substratum and foundation 
of it and of all our thoughts.” 3 

1 (Euvresphilosophiques, Vol. Ill, p. 240. 

2 Critique of Pure Reason (trans. by Max Muller 1 ), p. 283. 

•Ibid., pp. 285-286. 


biran’s relation to earlier thinkers 


17 


Biran has been compared to Kant with reference to the concept 
of self-activity. Let us see now just how much and how little 
real resemblance there is. 

Konig called Biran the French Kant. But the compari¬ 
son is employed with reference to the emphasis that each of the 
philosophers gives to the “ spontaneity of the subject.” More¬ 
over Konig points out the different applications of the concept in 
the two cases. “ The same idea of spontaneity by means of 
which Kant reformed empirical epistemology is applied by 
Biran to the psychology of sensationalism. That which was an 
epistemological hypothesis in the first instance appears as a psy¬ 
chological fact in the second. The counterpart of the transcen¬ 
dental function of the understanding meets us as the empirical 
activity of the psychological subject.” 1 Konig regards Biran’s 
psychological deduction of the categories as entirely unsatisfactory. 
“ Although Biran’s attempt to deduce the pure concepts of the 
understanding from inner perception is to be regarded as unsuc¬ 
cessful and his identification of the logical subject with the subject 
as object of inner perception is an error which manifests itself by 
its consequences, yet his work is of great interest, etc .” 2 Again, 
epistemology “ has emancipated itself more and more from psy¬ 
chology.” 3 Levy-Bruhl finds great resemblance between Biran 
and Kant apparently because neither the one nor the other 
believed that “ by means of analysis based on purely internal 
experience, we can . . . arrive at the notion of a substantial 
ego.” 4 But we find that in Kant soul-substance is opposed to a 
transcendental unity while in Biran it is opposed to a real force.. 

With Kant the principle of activity is involved throughout the 
whole of consciousness. With Biran it is a particular element 
in consciousness. Will is a part of mind over against other 
parts, passive elements, as pure sensations, desires, pleasure,, 
pain, etc. Consciousness is a sum of mental elements, which: 
respectively derive their significance and value from the relation* 
in which they stand to the active element, will, rather than a 

1 Philosophische Monatshefte , Vol. XXV, pp. 160 fF. 

2 Ibid., p. 169. 

3 Ibid. , pp. 190-191. 

* History of Modern Philosophy in France (Eng. trans.), p. 327. 


18 MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 

unity which is organically related to its parts. The result is that, 
for Biran, the self is one element, or part, abstracted from con¬ 
sciousness, rather than the total subjective side of a unitary ex¬ 
perience. Consequently, the self is a special fact to be verified 
by introspection in the same manner as any other part within 
consciousness. It differs from the other simple elements by 
reason of its active character, and its universal occurrence 
throughout the conscious life ; but not by including the other 
elements within itself. The difference between Kant and Biran 
will become very clear as we trace the relation pf the self taken 
as a particular element to the ideas of substance, identity, and 
•causality. And it will also receive illustration when later in the 
psychology we trace it as one constituent factor in the mental 
life. 

Naville places Biran, as an opponent of skepticism, with Kant 
and Reid. “ The formal denial of the principle of causality in 
the writings of the skeptical Scotsman (Hume) gave him (Biran) 
the full consciousness of the value of his own thought. When 
we consider the importance which he attached to the principle, 
and the attention he gave to the arguments of the skeptic even in 
their minutest detail, we feel authorized to say that he is on the 
same ground with Kant and Reid. . . . He accomplished the 
same work of struggle and restoration as Kant and Reid, but he 
accomplished it in other ways.” 1 Naville compares Biran’s 
psychology with the “phenomenalism” of the Scottish school, 
as represented by Dugald Stewart. 

For the present consideration, however, it is more important 
to compare Biran’s principles with those of Reid, as the real 
head of the Scottish school. Seth has shown very clearly 
Reid’s method of attacking the “ Idealistic school ” (Descartes, 
Locke, and Hume). Reid struck directly at the root-assumption, 
“ namely that experience yields as its ultimate data such self-sub- 
sistent, ‘ loose,’ or relationless units of sensation as Hume be¬ 
gins and ends with.” 2 “We do not start, he insists, with ideas, 
but with judgments. So far from being the primitive act of 

1 CEuvres inedites , Vol. I, pp. cix, cx. 

2 A. Seth, Scottish Philosophy , p. 73. 


biran’s relation to earlier thinkers 


19 


mind, Simple Apprehension or the knowledge of sensations per 
se, is a species of abstract contemplation.” 1 “ Our first having 

of a sensation is at the same time the knowledge of a present 
object, and (implicitly) of that object as somehow 'related to 
me.” 1 Biran, on the other hand, develops farther rather than 
opposes the ideas of the English school. He reduces the theoiy 
of simple apprehension to more ultimate terms but does not sub¬ 
stitute for that theory the view that “judgment is the primitive 
act of mind.” The impression is something requiring analysis ; 
but it is explained by a fact of immediate experience. The im¬ 
mediate knowledge of the self is a particular kind of simple appre¬ 
hension rather than a judgment. 

Another point of difference between Reid and Biran is in the 
character of the ontology which is required by their respective 
theories of knowledge. Seth says “ it might be argued that by 
maintaining a theory of immediate perception, Scottish philosophy 
destroys the foreignness of matter to mind, and thus implicitly 
removes the only foundation of a real dualism.” 2 Biran very 
explicitly teaches dualism. The resistance which meets the 
will in effort is foreign to the self. Our knowledge of reality may 
become more determinate ; but that reality itself always remains 
an independent “other” over against the self. 

The fundamental differences between Reid and Biran become 
still clearer when we consider their treatment of particular topics. 
As will is the central idea in Biran’s system, and as it is in the 
act of will that we discover the self, it is advisable to consider 
what will is for Reid. His definition is as follows : “ Every man 
is conscious of a power to determine in things which he conceives 
to depend upon his determination. To this power we give the 
name of will.” There are some characteristics of will which we 
must notice. First, “every act of will must have an object” : a 
man cannot “will without willing something.” Second, “the 
immediate object of will must be some action of our own.” Third, 
“ the object of our volition must be something which we believe 
to be in our power and to depend upon our will.” Fourth, 

1 Op. cit ., p. 78. 

2 Ibid., pp. 76-77. 


20 


MAINE DE BIRA.Vs PHILOSOPHY 


“ volition is accompanied with an effort to execute that which we 
willed.” Finally, “ in all determinations of the mind that are of 
any importance, there must be something in the preceding state 
of the mind that disposes or inclines us to that determination.” 1 

In Reid’s first observation concerning the will, that is, in the 
statement that the will must have an object, we meet with a diver¬ 
gence from Biran’s view. For from the latter standpoint, the 
will, it is true, meets a resistance, but not with an object in the 
strict sense of the term. There comes to be an object only after 
the will has been in activity and the resistance has been abstracted 
from the complete act of will. In fact, the resistance does not 
become an explicit object until the distinction between inner and 
outer experience has been developed. Passing to the fourth 
characteristic of the will, that is, that it must be accompanied by 
effort, we find another distinction between the views of Reid and 
of Biran. With the latter, effort is not a second act supplemen¬ 
tary to the act of will, but it is our consciousness of the act of 
will, the will meets with resistance. Reid thinks of the matter in 
psychical terms, while Biran makes the act depend on the pres¬ 
ence of the muscular system. Finally, in Reid’s view, there 
must be a motive to will, but for Biran the will is the basis of all 
cognitive experience, and consequently of all explicit motives. 
These points make clear the radical difference in the ideas of will 
that are found in the two systems, and we now pass on to differ¬ 
ences on other important questions. 

Reid makes “judgment and belief in some cases precede simple 
apprehension.” “ Instead of saying that the belief or knowledge 
is got by putting together and comparing the simple apprehen¬ 
sions, we ought rather to say that simple apprehension is per¬ 
formed by resolving and analysing a natural and original judgment.” 
“ The belief which accompanies sensation and memory is a simple 
act of the mind which cannot be defined.” 2 Moreover this 
belief applies to the subject as well as to the object. “Thought 
must have a subject and be the act of some thinking being.” The 
existence of the subject and object are not derived from sensa¬ 
tions. “They are judgments of nature . . . judgments not got 

1 Collected Writings (8th ed.), pp. 530-533 

2 Ibid., pp. 106-108. 


biran’s relation to earlier thinkers 


21 


by comparing ideas, . . . but immediately inspired by our con¬ 
stitution.” 1 With Biran the idea of the subject is derived from 
an analysis of inner sensation ; the idea of the object is developed 
from the resistance which meets conscious effort. 

With Reid notions or conceptions are distinguished very sharply 
from sensations. They are the “ result of our constitution,” the 
power by which they are acquired “ is neither sensation nor re¬ 
flection.” Extension, figure, and motion “ are not ideas of sensa¬ 
tion, nor like to any sensation.” 2 With Biran, sensation and 
perception differ simply in respect to the degree of volitional ac¬ 
tivity involved. In sensation there is merely enough activity 
present to maintain consciousness, but in perception the self is in 
some degree attentive. 

Reid answered Hume by attacking the principle that ideas, or 
impressions, are the only reality. The self and the object are 
real and are known by natural judgments. Biran answered Hume 
by finding an idea, or impression, which had been overlooked in 
the analysis, that is, the feeling of self discovered in the conscious¬ 
ness of effort. 

1 Op. cit ., p. no. 

2 Ibid ., p. 128. 


SECTION IV. 


Psychological Basis of Biran’s Philosophy. 

In giving a general account of Maine de Biran’s philosophy in 
its completed form I shall follow the divisions of the subject which 
he made in the Essai sur les fondements de la psychologie. We 
shall look first at the primitive fact of consciousness, then at the 
deduction of the categories, and finally at the psychology. First, 
there is a description of the primitive fact of voluntary activity in 
which the author maintains that we have a direct perception of 
the self. This fact is for him the real basis of consciousness. 
Secondly, the primitive fact of consciousness gives what he re¬ 
gards as a real basis for the ideas of substance, causality, and 
unity. We have then in this connection his metaphysics in so 
far as he has given one. Finally, in the third part of the work 
there is the psychology proper, in which the principle of volun¬ 
tary activity is traced through the various degrees of relation that 
it sustains to an underlying basis of unconscious and purely affec¬ 
tive life. 

Maine de Biran’s philosophy is founded upon psychology, 
in the sense that he aims to derive rather than postulate episte¬ 
mological principles. The beginning is a fact, but it is not a 
fact in the common signification of the term, in the sense of a 
relation independent of the subject; it is a fact of inner experience 
(sens intime ), the primary activity of consciousness. The philoso¬ 
pher is very careful to define this ultimate factor of experience 
and knowledge. He distinguishes it from simple sensation by 
elaborating the difficulties involved in the contingent and unrelated 
character of external impressions ; and he differentiates it from per¬ 
ception in general by emphasizing the relative character ol objec¬ 
tive knowledge. We do not apply the name fact to all that ex¬ 
ists for us, all that we perceive without or sense within ourselves, 
or all that we can conceive. We have a fact only when we are 
aware of our own individual existence and of the existence of 


22 


PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF BIRAN’s PHILOSOPHY 


23 


something else, an object or modification, that accompanies our 
own existence and yet is distinct from it. “A fact is nothing 
unless it is known, unless there is an individual and permanent 
subject which knows.” 1 

This definition excludes mere sensation from the category of fact. 
And, in consequence, we cannot place the origin of knowledge 
in sensation. So long g,s the subject is identified with its modifi¬ 
cation, so long as it has no individual existence, or self, and is not 
distinguished from the object that is known, we do not have 
knowledge. On this distinction rests the fact of knowledge which 
we can justly call primitive, for nothing can be conceived without 
it and all other knowledge presupposes it as a necessary condi¬ 
tion. 2 To be self or in self is essential if one is to perceive the 
simplest fact or know in the slightest degree.. There is also 
a negative proof of this position. Experience shows that the 
more vividly we are affected, the less our impressions or the 
objects which excite them are facts for us. Consequently, we 
can conclude that there would be no knowledge of any kind 
for a purely sensitive being. The primitive fact is not the simple 
sensation, but the idea of the sensation which is possible only with 
the individuality of the self. 3 

The conception of the basis of consciousness as a relation be¬ 
tween the self and the not-self seems at first to exclude the dis¬ 
tinction of facts of inner experience from sensations and represen¬ 
tation in general. The self and the object are known only in 
immediate relation to each other. How is the self or the single 
subject to know itself as independent of all sensible modifications. 
According to Biran the confusion results from neglecting to deter¬ 
mine the primary condition which makes external objects possi¬ 
ble. If the self is identified with its affective sensations and exists 
only in and through them, it does not exist for itself. There is no 
relation, no fact, and no knowledge. But if the self is distinguished 
from, as well as united to, each of its sensations, so that there are 
internal facts of consciousness and specific sensations, the latter 

1 (Euvres inedit'es, Vol. I, p. 36. 

2 Cf. ibid., Vol. I, pp. 37-38. 

3 Cf. ibid., Vol. I, pp. 38-39. 


24 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


are purely passive in principle and cannot serve as the basis of 
knowledge ; they are merely hypothetical elements. 1 

Sensations are constantly varying both on account of external 
causes and on account of the condition of the sense organs. 
Sometimes they disappear from consciousness, at other times 
they obscure it by their intensity. They have not the permanence 
which we expect in the source of knowledge. In themselves 
they do not have the nature of relations. If they gain this char¬ 
acter through the judgment of externality they are facts but are 
no longer ultimate. The primitive relation cannot be determined 
so long as one of the elements is a vague notion of a sense ob¬ 
ject. No one of the external senses can supply the kind of term 
required in that constant union which is the fundamental relation 
of consciousness. We are compelled to look beyond sensation 
for the necessary element in the original duality, or the primitive 
fact of inner experience. For the requirement of constant and 
reciprocal relation of the two terms is not satisfied either by af¬ 
fective or by representative sensation. Even when sensation is re¬ 
garded as a primitive duality, the subject as simple and permanent 
is distinguished from an object or mode, which is variable ; but 
this is to describe elements which are abstracted from the rela¬ 
tion which alone causes them. 2 

After this negative argument to show that sensation cannot be 
the ultimate datum which we require, Maine de Biran proceeds 
to determine positively the nature of the primitive fact. If the 
subject is one and simple, and a real existence rather than a pure 
abstraction, we can say further that the self, like any other exis¬ 
tence, is a fact only as a variable or permanent mode of a sub¬ 
stance, or as an effect of a cause which determines it. We have 
to ask if the self is given to itself in the primitive fact as a modi¬ 
fied subject, or as a cause, or force which is productive of certain 
effects. This question has been neglected, or rather it has been 
assumed that the soul is a substance, and thus no place has been 
left for the principle of activity. It is true that we have in our 
minds the idea of substance ; but it is not difficult to prove that 

1 Cf. op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 40-43. 

2 Cf. ibid., Vol. I, p. 45. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF BIRAN’s PHILOSOPHY 25 

the notion depends upon a deduction from primitive facts. We 
find also in ourselves the notion of cause or force, but prior to 
the notion is the immediate experience of force. This experience 
is no other than that of our very existence, which is inseparable 
from activity. We could not know ourselves as individual per¬ 
sons, if we did not feel ourselves as the cause of movements pro¬ 
duced in the organic body. The cause or force actually applied 
in the movement of the body is active and is called will. The self 
identifies itself completely with this active force. But only 
through its exercise is the force a fact for the self; and this ac¬ 
tivity occurs only in relation to an inert or resisting limit. The 
force is actualized only in relation to its goal; and the goal is 
determinate only in relation to the force which tends to move it. 
The fact of this tendency is effort, or volition, which is the primi¬ 
tive fact of inner experience. 1 

Effort is a fact, since it consists in a relation between a force 
and the limit of the force. The fact is primitive, since it is the 
first in the order of knowledge. The first sensations which give 
the first perceptions are themselves aroused by the same individual 
force that creates effort. This primitive effort is a fact of inner 
experience, because it does not go beyond its immediate applica¬ 
tion, the inertia of the physical organs. It is the simplest of all 
relations, since all our perceptions depend on it as their essential 
condition and formal element; and the judgment of externality 
rests on and is an extension of it. Finally, it is the single rela¬ 
tion which is invariable; the constant result of an identical force 
acting on an identical goal. 2 In the Antliropologie , Maine de Biran 
gives a somewhat closer determination of the nature of the effort 
which is a fundamental fact in his system ; the active element does 
not depend upon the passive element in human nature. “ Life 
and the material organism, which is an actual and perhaps a 
necessary condition of certain forms of thought, does not originate 
the thought.” 3 To bring this out clearly, movement is classified 
as instinctive, spontaneous, or voluntary. Spontaneous move¬ 
ment is that which is “ produced by the direct action of the brain,” 

1 Cf. op. cit., Vol. I, p. 47• 

2 Cf ibid., Vol. I, p. 48. 

3 Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 376. 


26 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


while instinctive movement is “ produced by a reaction of the same 
center following sensible impressions of the inner organs.” The 
important question for Maine de Biran is the relation of the sev¬ 
eral classes of movements. “ The development of. animal life 
must necessarily lead to the transformation of the first insensible, 
instinctive movement . . . into spontaneous movements which 
can be sensed in the animal and distinctly perceived when they 
exist in man. We ask now if the spontaneous movements can 
be transformed immediately into voluntary movements.” 1 Physi¬ 
ology shows that the cerebral center functions in automatic as in 
voluntary movements. But “ something more enters into the 
activity of the will in bodily movements than enters into the func¬ 
tions of the nervous and cerebral organism, and that something 
more, under whatever title it is expressed, must be considered 
as ... a hyper-organic force,” 2 which stands to the nervous 
system as the latter stands to the muscular system. This is a 
characteristic of man as distinguished from the lower animals. 
Spontaneous movements which form the transition from instinct 
to will are “the limit of development of the purely animal life,” 
but “the beginning of the active life.” We catch a glimpse of 
the passage from spontaneous to volitional movements in waking. 
Then “ the self reenters its domain and seizes the products of a 
force which is not its own.” 3 

In a letter to Ampere, Biran says that “ the sense of effort is 
the same as the active muscular sense.” 4 He does not admit 
effort in the “ mere action of the hyper-organic force on the 
brain, but in that action transmitted to the muscular organism.” 4 

The cause of the effort becomes self through the distinction 
which arises between the subject of the free effort and the limit 
which immediately resists the effort. In this sense, the conscious¬ 
ness of effort is the self and is known in its activity. It cannot 
be known without this activity any more than we could really 
know what colors are without visual sensations. But in either 
case we can study the physical or organic means by which the 

1 Op. cit., Vol. Ill, pp. 458-59. 

* Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 465. 

* Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 470. 

4 A. Bertrand in Revue de Metaphysique et de Alorale, Vol. I, pp. 318—19. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 

experience comes about. This is especially necessary when deal¬ 
ing with inner experience, in order clearly to distinguish the per¬ 
ception of the subject from the perception of objects. The con¬ 
sciousness of effort is restricted to that part of the muscular sys¬ 
tem‘which the will can call directly into play. Voluntary effort 
differs essentially from the muscular sensation, or sensation of 
movement which we have when any part of the muscular system 
is moved by an external force. There is no excitation, or stimu¬ 
lus ; but the movement is produced without any force other than 
that which perceives itself immediately in its exercise. When 
we symbolize the activity by physiological signs, we can say the 
volitional force passes from the center of the nervous system to 
the voluntary muscles, while the simple muscular sensation arises 
at the periphery and terminates at the nervous center. In the 
analysis we are compelled to resort to these physiological terms, 
but in the fact of inner experience we find that voluntary activity 
is really indivisible and instantaneous. 1 

There are two moments of volitional activity. The first cor¬ 
responds to the simple motor determination of the nervous sys¬ 
tem and does not seem to involve any inner perception; but even 
if it did, it would not be the symbol of individuality. The self 
does not know itself until it distinguishes itself, as subject of 
effort, from a resisting limit. Prior to this the inner perception 
can be no more than a vague consciousness of existence. The 
second moment corresponds to the muscular contraction and the 
report to the nervous center. This completes the inner percep¬ 
tion of effort, which is inseparable from a resisting limit. 2 

As already indicated, we have in this statement of Maine de 
Biran’s fundamental position the important characteristics by 
which he distinguishes his philosophy from other forms of em¬ 
piricism and from rationalism. The sensation apart from the sub¬ 
ject of consciousness is really nothing for that consciousness. 
The attempt to substantialize pure sensation, by neglecting its 
relation to the subject, and then to develop it into knowledge by 
means of a purely logical process was, according to Biran, the 

1 Cf. (Euvres inedites, Vol. I, pp. 208-12. 

2 Cf. ibid., Vol. I, pp. 212-213. 


28 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


error of later empiricism, especially in the case of Condillac. 
This unfortunate result was due to the defective psychological 
analysis which neglected elements because they were not readily 
associated with particular objects in the external world. On the 
other hand, the error of rationalism was the fact that it substan¬ 
tialized the soul itself. A system was built on the idea of con¬ 
sciousness made absolute. With Descartes the beginning was 
mind substance and its correlate material substance instead of the 
actual effort and resistance of psychological analysis. Leibnitz 
came nearer to an adequate statement by his emphasis of inde¬ 
pendent activity as the essential characteristic of substance; yet 
be also made the force absolute, contrary to the evidence of in¬ 
trospection. In the primitive fact of our volitional activity Maine 
de Biran believes that he finds a datum that is at once dependent 
upon experience and yet can serve as a real basis for the expla¬ 
nation of consciousness. Experience, according to him, when 
accurately analyzed, yields a fact which has all the advantages of 
an a priori principle. The unitary and unchangeable character 
of effort is due to the circumstance that the two terms of the 
relation, the self, and the resistance remain constant. The re¬ 
sistance is primarily our own body. The general criticism of the 
empiricists and the rationalists is that the former did not carry 
their analysis far enough, while the latter carried it too far, and 
that each school substituted abstractions for facts. 

But Maine de Biran himself does not avoid the fault of abstrac¬ 
tion which he attributed to his predecessors. If we consider 
actual experience, we do not find his primitive fact in the 
isolated form in which he describes it. The distinction and 
the correlation of objective and subjective factors extend through 
all experience. Effort is not a conscious fact, unless it is judged. 
Consequently the effort which Biran makes a fundamental princi¬ 
ple is not the result of a simple analysis of experience, but is de¬ 
rived only by abstraction from ideational factors which are always 
associated with it. Perception of the self is not given simply 
in experience. The difficulties of his position become apparent 
when we notice the implications involved in each of the two 
senses in which effort may be employed as an explanatory prin- 


PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF BIRAN’s PHILOSOPHY 29 

ciple of conscious activity. If, (i) while admitting that in simple 
analysis the external reference is as ultimate as volitional activity 
for consciousness, it is still maintained that from the point of view 
of origin the volitional factor is more ultimate; in other words, if 
we make the problem one of genesis, the effort is then no longer 
a primitive fact but a conceptual construction which we are using 
as a ground for the explanation of consciousness very much in 
the same manner in which Condillac used sensation, or Descartes 
used soul substance. More technically stated, Maine de Biran 
makes the feeling of effort, which he regards as the primitive fact 
of consciousness, serve also as the logical ground of conscious¬ 
ness. There is a confusion of method, a failure to distinguish the 
facts of introspective analysis from those of genetic description. 
He would doubtless himself say that there is no confusion, that 
his greatest merit was the discovery of a fact which was at the 
same time a principle of explanation. But in considering that 
discovery we should note that for him there is no fact apart from 
consciousness: the first fact is a relation. The primitive feeling 
of effort is the genetic source of the idea of an external world; 
but that fact itself involves the idea of another, a resistance. We 
cannot have an idea, a consciousness of another, or a resistance, 
apart from the idea of something, perhaps indefinite, which is in 
some sense external to the self. That is, the thought of con¬ 
sciousness involves the thought of a reference beyond the self. 
But if (2), the effort in question is taken to be logically but not tem¬ 
porally prior to consciousness, it is no longer the primitive fact 
of consciousness, in the strict sense. A logical distinction be¬ 
tween inner and outer experience seems to be given a psycholog¬ 
ical significance, and in virtue of this distinction a psychological 
abstraction is made the ultimate principle of consciousness. These 
difficulties are raised with no desire to depreciate the value of 
Biran’s emphasis of conscious activity, but merely to question 
the adequacy of his psychological basis of epistemology. The 
deficiencies of the method will be more apparent when we have 
seen its application in Biran’s detailed accounts of the principles 
of consciousness and of the phenomena of mental life. We shall 
now consider his deduction of the principles of substance, causal¬ 
ity, unity, et cetera. 


SECTION V. 


Deduction of the Categories. 

Passing to the deduction of the categories, we see that effort 
as it is found in the inner conscious experience, is the basis, ac¬ 
cording to Maine de Biran, of our ultimate metaphysical ideas. 
To the exercise of the faculty of inner perception, we owe not 
only the consciousness of the self but also the primary ideas of 
being, cause, substance, and unity. These ideas differ from the 
abstract class notions with which they are often confused. They 
are natural and necessary rather than artificial and arbitrary. 
They are the conditions of thought and belong to the beginning 
of knowledge instead of being mere means or symbols. And 
finally they are independent of the natural impressions with which 
they are associated. They cannot, however, belong exclusively 
to the very nature of an unconditioned and independent soul; 
but must, on the other hand, have their origin in experience. 
We must not presuppose anything innate; analysis should be 
carried as far as possible. With the results already attained in 
regard to the origin of personality, Biran thinks he can explain 
the ideas in question without referring them to sensation or to the 
nature of the soul. Prior to the self there is no actual or possible 
knowledge. Since it is only necessary to introspect in order to 
have the idea of being, of substance, of cause, and of unity; we 
may say that each of the ideas has its immediate origin in the 
consciousness of the self. They can always be reduced from the 
form in which they appear to the immediate and permanent type 
which they have in inner experience. 1 

The idea of force can be originally derived only from the con¬ 
sciousness of the subject who experiences effort. Even when the 
idea is already abstracted from the fact of consciousness, it still 
bears the imprint of its origin. We cannot conceive any force of 
attraction or repulsion in bodies without attributing, to some ex- 
1 Cf op. cit ., Vol. I, p. 248. 

3 ° 


DEDUCTION OF THE CATEGORIES 


31 


tent, to the bodies the individual force which is constitutive of 
the self. 1 

The idea of substance can be derived from the elements of the 
fact of consciousness or from the primitive duality. It refers to 
what subsists or remains constant at the core of various manifes¬ 
tations, and to what is beyond the manifestations as their common 
bond of union. The first is the total form of effort which remains 
identical in the two terms, force and resistance; the second is the 
organic resistance which is associated with all sensible modifica¬ 
tions. This organic resistance is a permanent base, a true sub¬ 
strate. It is no more an abstraction than is the subject of effort, 
or the self, of which it is the correlate. Beyond all variable 
modifications of sensibility, effort and resistance remain the same. 
They are subject and object or antecedent and consequent term 
of the fundamental relation of personality. 2 

Thus in effort and resistance, as they exist in inner experience, 
Biran finds the source of the abstract notions of substance and 
force. It is through the neglect of this ultimate source that in¬ 
soluble questions have arisen in regard to the ideas. Some have 
wished to make the ideas absolute and to derive the real from the 
possible ; others have denied the reality of the ideas, since they 
could not reduce them to clear representations of sense or imagi¬ 
nation. The idea of substance and the idea of force which are 
derived from ourselves and conceived by a reference to ourselves 
have all the reality and truth of facts of inner experience; but 
their proof becomes obscure when they are applied to external 
things. When we abstract entirely from the consciousness of the 
self and leave only the bare exercise of effort, we have the mate¬ 
rial, so to speak, of the idea of absolute force. Yet, in spite of 
ourselves, a confused consciousness of our own force will mingle 
with that abstract idea. Similarly, by abstracting bare resistance 
from the consciousness of a continuously resisting limit, we form 
the notion of absolute or possible resistance, that is, of substance. 
This idea is always conceived under the form of passivity and 
modeled after the organic resistance which the self perceives 
when it is distinguishing itself in the exercise of effort. 

1 Cf. op. cit ., Vol. I, p. 249. 

2 Cf ibid., Vol. I, p. 250. 


32 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


Thus the abstract notion of substance is more obscure than 
that of force, and belongs to a point of view more foreign to us. 
When the primitive duality as the source of all knowledge is 
analyzed into its two elements, the subjective or formal side, the 
idea of force or activity, is made the principle of psychology. The 
objective element, as the prototype of the idea of substance, is 
taken as the principle of physics. This order cannot be set aside, 
that is, the notion of substance cannot be made the principle of 
psychology, or the notion of force the principle of physics, with¬ 
out distorting the purposes of the sciences. Moreover, if either 
principle is considered as absolute and the source which the idea 
must have in a primary relation is neglected, the true process of 
knowledge is inverted and the result is an abstract science which 
is foreign to the reality of things. 1 We find this scheme of the 
sciences repeated and elaborated in the psychology. 

The primitive ideas always elude the imagination and sense- 
perception. The sense of touch, although it is very important in 
externalizing our ideas of force and substance, has nothing to do 
with their formation. We do not touch the substrate of tactual 
forms any more than we see the real substance of light. Sub¬ 
stance cannot be represented by the imagination. It is conceived 
only in necessary relation to a certain union of qualities of which 
it is regarded as the subject. But, although the imagination has 
to do only with combined elements, or groups ; reason must 
nevertheless presuppose the reality of the subject. It is the 
unrepresented subject and not the modes that is conceived as 
existing and acting. 2 

The reality of the principle of causality depends, according to 
Maine de Biran, upon the possibility of identifying it with self-con¬ 
sciousness or with the primitive fact of consciousness. We sub¬ 
stitute a logical entity for a fact when we begin with the abstract 
idea and set up the category of causality, or when we regard it 
as a form of the mind, or a mere regulative principle of knowl¬ 
edge. But we do not recognize the real value of the principle of 
causality when we regard it simply as the law of phenomenal suc- 

1 Cf. op. .cit ., Vol. I, p. 253. 

2 Cf. ibid., Vol. I, pp. 254-5. 


DEDUCTION OF THE CATEGORIES 


33 


cession. It is easy, however, to show the difference, or even the 
opposition, that there is between the idea of succession and the 
idea of productive cause. The empiricists failed to do away with 
the real application of causality. They tried to reduce all cause 
to laws of succession ; but while they were able to discover some 
laws and to classify effects, the real efficient causes remained 
indeterminate. Each class of phenomena involved an unknown 
something which was felt to be incommensurate with any sensible 
idea. The efficient cause obstinately persisted in the mind even 
when its manner of operation was entirely hidden from the imagi¬ 
nation. The failure of the empiricists to substitute the relation 
of succession for that of causality has been an argument in favor 
of the a priori character of the latter principle. A priori ideas, 
however, disappear before introspection. The idea of cause has 
its primitive type in self-consciousness where it is indentified with 
the idea of effort. 

When Biran considered Hume’s analysis of the idea of power, 
he found in the facts which were brought out another reason for 
the view already presented. After having shown that the prin¬ 
ciple of causality could not have its ground in external experience, 
Hume asked if the idea of efficient cause, or necessaiy relation, 
could be based on the inner consciousness of our own force, that 
is, on the power of the will over the physical organs or mental 
processes. He concluded that it could not. But the conclusion 
resulted from the denial of our ability to experience any force, in 
any other way than we experience the activity in natural phenom¬ 
ena. He made the value of external experience coordinate with 
that of internal experience, and thus cut himself off from the 
possibility of finding what he sought. In his view the influence 
of volition over the bodily organs “ is a fact, which, like all other 
natural events, can be known only by experience, and can never 
be foreseen from any apparent energy or power in the cause.” 1 
Biran maintains that it is not a question of foreseeing, but rather 
of sensing or apprehending the existence of the force. Yet, as a 
matter of fact, the will or the very first voluntary effort is deter¬ 
minate and carries with it a vague consciousness of success, 

1 Hume’s Enquiries (Selby-Bigge), pp. 64-65. 


34 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


otherwise we should have merely desire. It is this characteristic 
which distinguishes voluntary movement from sensitive reaction, 
and the facts of inner experience from natural phenomena. Hume 
thought we could not know actual volitional force because we 
do not know how it acts. His illusory assimilation of the two 
kinds of knowledge is the basis of his mistake. We know the 
power of the will over the voluntary muscular system, but we 
cannot represent it to ourselves as we can represent an external 
movement. The two processes are entirely different. We cannot 
perceive colors by picturing to ourselves the optic nerve, the ret¬ 
ina, and the luminous object. To know objectively the occult 
relations of our own volitions, we need at the same time to be 
ourselves and another. The power is known as presented only 
to the motor being. The effect or movement is represented only 
as we separate ourselves entirely from the being to which we at¬ 
tribute the effect. It is only thus that the latter becomes an ex¬ 
ternal phenomenon. When we wish to conceive the power in its 
effect, we must establish the homogeneity between the two terms 
of the primitive relation of causality. We must take account of 
the fact of consciousness. There the subject of the effort per¬ 
ceives himself, in inner experience, as the cause of a movement 
which is simultaneously sensed, not represented, as an effect. 

The inevitable effect of habituation is to lessen, by insensible 
degrees, the consciousness of the movements or acts which are 
repeated. This result is especially marked in the case of inner 
experience. The principle becomes dim as its external manifes¬ 
tations grow clear. Just as a light of uniform intensity to which 
we are accustomed is not perceptible in itself and ‘is known only 
from the objects which it illuminates, so voluntary effort tends to 
disappear among the various modifications to which it gives a 
base and an individual form. Thus the feeling of power or will 
decreases, and the causes of external phenomena get the ascen¬ 
dency in consciousness. Necessitated by our nature to direct our 
attention to these causes, we come to attribute to them the very 
activity by which we have made them our objects. Thus, habit 
which Hume regarded as an illusory influence in the formation 
of our idea of.cause is the very factor which tends most to blind 


DEDUCTION OF THE CATEGORIES 


35 


us to the origin of that idea and the true principle of its ap¬ 
plication. 1 The same circumstance which led to the attack 
of skepticism upon the principle of causality has motived the 
errors of dogmatism. The natural relation which unites motor 
force to its limiting term and the subject of effort to resistance 
has been construed in terms of a mysterious influence, of the in¬ 
tervention of God, and of preestablished harmony. 

Lang gives a very sympathetic account of Biran’s principle of 
causality, but is not, I think, able to vindicate its epistemological 
validity. He regards Biran’s deduction of the category of causal¬ 
ity as a successful answer to Hume’s logical criticism, but con¬ 
cludes “ that the French spiritualist has limited far too narrowly 
the sources from which the causal concept can be derived.” We 
have as clear an evidence of “ the spontaneous activity of the 
soul upon idea process, as we have of the influence of “the will 
on the physical organism.” “Psychical causality” should be 
placed at least on a par with “ muscular effort.” 2 Lang distin¬ 
guishes the causal law, “everything in the world has its cause,” 
from the causal principle, “ the existence and unchangeableness 
of natural law.” “ Biran seems to have felt these difficulties,” 
since he thought that “our belief in the unchangeability of 
natural law rested” on the fact that “ we must necessarily view 
natural forces after the analogy of the I as incorporeal and con¬ 
sequently unchangeable.” 3 

Maine de Biran finds that unity and identity, as well as cause, 
are included in the primitive fact. From this original source 
they are extended by a kind of generalization to the phenomenal 
objects of external nature. The self perceives itself in effort, as 
constantly of the same unitary form. ' From the single self are 
derived the ideas of the unity of substance, cause, and finite exis¬ 
tence. , The objects of nature resist the one will, or effort, and 
can only be conceived in relation to that fundamental unity. In 
a purely sensitive existence all is simultaneous. But it is the na¬ 
ture of the motor force, which constitutes the self, to act only in 
an order of succession, that is, to be a single act of perception at 

1 Cf. CEuvres inedites , Vol. I, p. 265. 

2 Maine de Biran und die neuere Philosophie , pp. 59-62. 

3 Ibid., pp. 4 2 - 44 - 


36 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


a time, for the very reason that it is simple. That which is simul¬ 
taneous in sensation becomes successive in thought. But all 
succession must have a first term, and this leads to the question 
of the origin of personality. Identity, like substance, is based 
on the primitive fact of consciousness and has a double original 
type, in the subject and in the resistance of effort. Personality 
cannot be established on either of the terms taken alone. 

According to Maine de Biran, Locke did not distinguish 
sharply enough the true personal identity which applies to the 
subject and to immediate perception, from the identity of an ob¬ 
ject of repeated perceptions and from soul substance. The two 
latter conceptions are derived from the first and should not be 
confused with it. The identity of soul substance is deduced 
from the identity of consciousness ; therefore the question whether 
personal identity can change while the soul substance remains 
the same is unnecessary. 1 

Freedom is another ultimate idea which depends for its origin 
and validity on the nature of the self. Maine de Biran says : 
“ Freedom considered as the feeling of a power in exercise pre¬ 
supposes the reality of that power, as the mere feeling of our 
existence proves to us the reality of that existence.” 2 Muscular 
sensation can become active, determined by the will, and passive, 
influenced by a force beyond the self. In this alternation in the 
fact of consciousness, we have the type of the ideas of freedom 
and necessity. To call freedom in question is to doubt the feel¬ 
ing of the self. Biran thinks that any one could deny his 
own existence as well as his freedom. Erroneous opinions in 
regard to freedom are occasioned by a confusion between desire 
and will. He defines the relation as follows : “ Will is circum¬ 
scribed by the same limits as power,” “ desire, on the contrary, 
begins where power ends and includes all the field of our pas¬ 
sivity.” 3 A further cause of error in this connection, according 
to Biran, is a very strong tendency toward the unconditioned, that 
is, a substitution of reasoning based upon the absolute nature of 

1 Cf CEuvres inedites , Vol. I, pp. 279-280. 

2 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 291. 

3 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 290. 


DEDUCTION OF THE CATEGORIES 


37 


substances for the evidence of the primitive fact of consciousness 
found by introspection. 

Cousin shows very clearly the difficulties in this derivation of 
freedom from the perception of muscular activity. “ The theory 
of Maine de Biran considers the free act. only in its external mani¬ 
festation, in a remarkable fact without doubt, but which itself sup¬ 
poses the fact quite as profound and intimate, the fact of willing 
with its immediate and proper affect. Here, in my opinion, is the 
primitive type of liberty. . . . When we seek freedom in an act, 
we may be deceived in two ways: either we seek it in the intel¬ 
lectual element of the act, the consciousness of the motives, the 
deliberation, the preference, the choice, and then we cannot find 
it; for it is evident that the different motives . . . command the 
intelligence. Or we seek liberty in the physical element of the 
act, and we do not find it there at least constantly, and we are 
tempted to conclude that liberty is but an accident.” 1 

Maine de Biran distinguishes the ideas of reflection, substance, 
force, unity, and identity from abstract ideas in the purely logical 
sense of general notions. All general ideas are abstract, but not 
all abstract notions are general ideas. In analyzing a concrete 
totality into its elementary parts, the attention isolates elements 
which really exist only in the totality. But in the case of gen¬ 
eralizations or comparison of different objects, the results are 
qualities which are common to the objects. The ideas of reflec¬ 
tion differ both from the products of abstraction by the attention 
and from the products of abstraction and comparison. The ideas 
of reflection are individual and simple while the logical abstrac¬ 
tions are collective. The general notions become less real and 
individual as they are extended to a greater number of objects ; 
while the ideas of reflection approach nearer to real unity as 
they become more abstract. Logical abstractions have a purely 
nominal value; but the abstract ideas of reflection have a real 
value independent of any external application. Biran con¬ 
cludes that we should analyze the ultimate principles of science, 
if they are not founded upon facts of consciousness. When, on 
the contrary, the simple ideas of reflection are made the basis of 

1 Cousin, History of Modern Philosophy , Vol. Ill, Lecture XXV. 


38 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


science, there is no opportunity for analysis. Science did not 
exist before the self; and analysis cannot extend beyond the self. 
Metaphysics will be the real positive science of inner phenomena 
and of all that can be deduced from these phenomena, provided 
it starts with the fact of consciousness as a primitive “given,” to 
be established but not to be explained or analyzed. It will be an 
abstract science lost in definitions and hypotheses without begin¬ 
ning or end, if it starts from general principles and attempts to 
establish science beyond all actual existence . 1 

Maine de Biran very naturally refers to Locke’s treatment of 
general ideas. Empiricism tends to regard all concepts as hav¬ 
ing only a logical value; Locke, however, distinguished between 
mixed modes which are mere combinations of ideas, and general 
ideas which necessarily admit of a real essence. Locke never¬ 
theless “neglects too much the inner model which the mind 
must consult in forming” the ideas . 2 The model is not the less 
real because it is not external. 

Such in outline is Maine de Biran’s metaphysics which is based 
upon the fact of inner experience, the direct perception of the 
self, and the consequent extension of the characteristics of the 
primitive fact to cover the regulative principles of experience. 
The immediate problem is to consider how far these principles 
derived from psychological analysis can be regarded as furnishing 
an exhaustive account of the epistemological categories with 
which they are associated. Sir William Hamilton shows very 
conclusively that the perception of activity fails to account for the 
necessaiy character of the judgment of causality. After criticiz¬ 
ing the subjective perception of causal efficiency on the ground 
that there is no consciousness of causal connection between voli¬ 
tion and motion, he says : “ Admitting that causation were cog¬ 
nizable, and that perception and self-consciousness were competent 
to its apprehension, still as these faculties could only take note of 
individual causations, we should be wholly unable, out of such 
empirical acts, to evolve the quality of necessity and universality 
by which this notion is distinguished. Admitting that we had 

1 Cf. CEuvres inedites, Vol. I, p. 305. 

2 Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 184-185. 


DEDUCTION OF THE CATEGORIES 


39 


really observed the agency of any number of causes, still this 
would not explain to us, how we are unable to think a manifesta¬ 
tion of existence without thinking it as an effect. Our internal 
experience, especially in the relations of our volitions to their 
effects, may be useful in giving us a clearer notion of causality; 
but it is altogether incompetent to account for what there is in it 
of the quality of necessity.” 1 Kuhtmann substantially agrees 
with Hamilton’s second criticism. While he thinks that Biran 
was right in deriving “ the objective concept of force from the 
subjective process ” 2 of volition, he maintains that “ the develop¬ 
ment of the concept of causality, that every change (effect) neces¬ 
sarily postulates another (change) (cause) for its genesis, belongs 
to the evolution of language and abstract thought.” 3 

In this connection we may recall the historical relations of 
Maine de Biran. It was his belief that he had established phi¬ 
losophy on a factual ground. He was an empiricist, the intel¬ 
lectual descendant of Locke and Condillac, and like his prede¬ 
cessors is primarily an epistemologist rather than an ontologist. 
And it is clearly from the epistemological, and not from the onto¬ 
logical, point of view that he treats the concepts of substance and 
causality. As Locke assumed a material substrate in which the 
qualities of sensation inhere, and as Condillac had a stimulus 
which was beyond consciousness and never completely included 
in it, so Biran found a resistance to the will, which ultimately 
remained an extra-conscious datum. This is one of the proto¬ 
types of the idea of substance, the other is found in the volitional 
subject. There is for Maine de Biran, as for Locke and Condillac, 
a datum outside consciousness which is assumed as a condition of 
volitional activity. For this reason he did not find it necessary 
to regard the will as always active. The mind does not always 
think. In an ontological sense the will is not ultimate, it is 
merely the first principle of consciousness. The simple sentient 
life to which the will is always related, and in which it meets 
with a reality other than itself, becomes more prominent in the 
psychology. That is the part of Maine de Biran’s work which 

1 Lectures , Vol. II, p. 392. 

2 Maine de Biran , p. 172. 

3 Ibid., p. 177. 


40 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


we have next to consider. The philosopher would be the first to 
emphasize the importance of the resistence which the will meets. 
He made no attempt to reach a fundamental unity; but very ex¬ 
plicitly maintained that the primitive fact of consciousness was 
based upon a relation which involved two terms. Life, which is 
simple in animality, the merely sentient experience, becomes dual 
in humanity, that is, in conscious experience . 1 

1 Cf CEuvres inedites, Vol. II, p. 4. 


# 


SECTION VI. 


Divisions of the Psychology. 

We now turn to the treatment of psychology which occupies 
the larger part of the chief work. According to Maine de Biran, 
an account of the principles of consciousness, even when their 
relation is shown to the primitive fact of voluntary effort, is not 
an exhaustive statement of the characteristics of human nature. 
Before the life of relation begins, there are impressions and in¬ 
stinctive movements coordinated with the impressions, and there 
is also, at least, a slight degree of pleasure and pain. Life in¬ 
volves the fact that the organism is affected either pleasantly or 
unpleasantly. Affections are the simple modes of pleasure and 
pain which make up a life purely sentient, and out of relation to 
self or to objective existences. There is a class of passive facul¬ 
ties which are subordinate to and developed with the affections. 
These constitute the animal nature, but since man is an active 
self as well as a sentient animal, they make up only one element 
of human nature. They differ essentially from the active facul¬ 
ties of the intelligent being, yet in man the two elements are 
closely united and constantly exercise an influence on each other. 
The factors are combined in a manner which varies according 
to the degree of development which the relational life has 
attained. In order to make his method clear, Biran attempts 
to isolate the two kinds of elements in human nature. By a pre¬ 
liminary analysis he hopes to gain a higher stage of perfection in 
his account of the psychological compounds. When the elements 
are once abstractly isolated, it is possible to understand the part 
that each plays in the phenomena of the mental life. By a study 
of the relation of the active subject to the purely affective life, 
which gives the first real content to the act of will, Biran con¬ 
cluded that the phenomena of feeling, sensation, perception, 
judgment, volition, etc. y could be classified in four systems. 
According to him the classification is not to represent logical 

4i 


42 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


abstractions, it is not founded on vague analogies, but is depen¬ 
dent on real factual distinctions. 

The first, or affective, system has to do with the simple modes 
of passive sensibility. Under this head there is an analysis of 
the various kinds of sensation considered with reference to simple 
affective impressions which they are capable of receiving, and 
with reference to the forms of stimulus which are correlated with 
their specific sensibility, but without regard to effort or the activity 
of the self. 

In the second, or sensitive system, the personality is consti¬ 
tuted by active effort. Our subject is no longer a merely sentient 
being which simply lives, that is, is affected without knowing its 
own life. An active self is united to the passive, sentient organ¬ 
ism. The self perceives that it is in relation to the different sen¬ 
sible modifications and retains its identity while the modifications 
change. Nevertheless, at this stage, the self is merely the spec¬ 
tator of passive modes which are produced in the living organism 
without the active exercise of its own force. Yet the second 
system differs essentially from the first. The self feels the affec¬ 
tive impressions, it localizes them in particular organs, and attrib¬ 
utes them to causes outside itself. That is, certain relations of 
causality which the affections do not primarily include are asso¬ 
ciated with them, and the various modifications are no longer 
mere physiological facts ; they are modifications of a self. Sen¬ 
sations are the “ first composite modes.” “ The self is united to 
sensible impressions and participates as an interested spectator, 
without exercising its own characteristic activity.” 1 This sensi¬ 
tive system is the first in the order of knowledge, but the second 
in the order of progress by which the sensitive and motor being 
raises itself from a purely affective state to personality and the 
various degrees of knowledge. 

The third or perceptive system includes modes to which the 
self is more closely related and in which it enters as an active 
participant. This relation requires that the organ which receives 
the impression be under the control 'of motor force. Although 
the force is still subordinate to the impression, it gives the sensa- 
1 Op. cit ., Vol. II, p. 6. 


DIVISIONS OF THE PSYCHOLOGY 


43 


tion the form of a unity in multiplicity. A perception is an im¬ 
pression in which the self participates by an action which is sub¬ 
sequent to the effect of the external object. Biran defines this 
third system as follows : “The perceptive system includes all the 
phenomena arising from the action of sensible objects combined 
with that of a will, which is still subordinate to the impressions 
that occasion or motive its first exercise.” 1 

In the fourth system, the self is united with modes which are 
characteristically active. They cannot begin or persist without 
an express act of will. The object or external agent is here sub¬ 
ordinate ; the impression is dependent upon activity which is voli- 
tionally determined. The active modes are homogeneous with 
the primitive constitution of the personality. They are only an 
extension of effort; but they refer to some foreign resistance or 
to results which are perfectly distinct in consciousness from the 
cause which produces them. Here the will has, at the same 
time, immediate apperception of the cause and intuition of the 
effect. The basis of the fourth system is thus : “ The act of re¬ 
flection joined with perception, or the fact of inner experience 
(sens intime) with the objective phenomena .” 2 

The systems just outlined serve as the general plan for Maine 
de Biran’s psychology. In his opinion the divisions have a real 
basis in fact, but in reality they are logical rather than introspec¬ 
tive distinctions. The whole construction depends upon the differ¬ 
ent ratios in which conscious activity is related to the underlying 
affective life. The affective life itself, however, as already noted, 
is extraneous to consciousness. It is not a fact in the sense of a 
primitive fact, but of a fact for an other, an outside observer. In 
this respect Biran’s psychology may be regarded as based upon 
logical abstraction. 

We shall consider his psychology more in detail by referring to 
his treatment of each of the four systems. It is in this connection 
that he shows the part that the will actually plays in his phi¬ 
losophy. 

1 Op . citl, Vol. II, p. 8. 

2 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 9. 


SECTION VII. 


Affective System. 

Simple affection is the element that is left of a complete sensa¬ 
tion when we abstract the self, together with the forms of space 
and time and the idea of causality. Affection, however, is not 
regarded as an abstraction, but as a real mode which makes up 
all our existence at the first and at all other times when the intel¬ 
lect becomes entirely inactive, as in sleep, or when the self is 
completely lost in sense impressions. 1 Lower forms of life always 
remain at the affective stage. The beginning of the capacity to 
be affected is possessed by the simplest types of organic life ; and 
the higher animals can be regarded as a multitude of lives united 
into a single life, or as a multitude of constituent affections united 
into a single result. If the living being is considered as an ag¬ 
gregate, and we abstract from individual unity, two features can 
be distinguished in an impression made on any particular organ ; 
first, the modification which that particular organ undergoes, and 
secondly, the modification of the entire sensitive system. The 
relative importance of these two modifications constitutes the af¬ 
fection as painful or pleasant in itself, that is, quite apart from 
comparison or even from consciousness. If the particular modi¬ 
fication is relatively much stronger than the general modification, 
the affection is painful, if not, it is pleasant. The painful or pleas¬ 
ant impression sets up movements which respectively tend to set 
aside or to maintain the impression. 

At the beginning there is a vague feeling of life without per¬ 
sonality. Life is the condition of sentiency. The impressions, 
whether they are of organic or of external origin, are confused 
with the general feeling of life, and for a long time retain this in¬ 
definite character. But with the further development of life the 
general excitatory character of the impressions diminishes and the 
particular affections can manifest themselves. Thus the materials 
1 Cf CEuvresphilosophiques, Vol. 3, pp. 2-39-240. 

44 


AFFECTIVE SYSTEM 


45 


of distinct perception are separated and the personal element alone 
is wanting to complete the first phenomenon of external represen¬ 
tation. The impressions derived from the different sense organs 
differ in the degree of ease with which they lend themselves to 
association with the self. Some always preserve more or less 
the character of general affections and thus remain somewhat con¬ 
fused ; others are more distinct and more disposed by nature to 
be localized or coordinated with their particular sense organs. 
The latter class easily admits the forms of space and time. 

In reference to the sense of touch, Maine de Biran says, that 
when we abstract effort from the affections, they reduce to an 
absolutely passive character and are deprived of all perceptive 
elements, of all form of space and time and of all idea of cause 
or substance. The affections correlated with the organs of taste 
and smell are very slow to differentiate themselves from the gen¬ 
eral affective system and even then tend to revert to a confused 
condition. But in the visual and auditory affections there are 
characteristics which promote the association of the passive affec¬ 
tions with the self. These immediate passive intuitions are, in 
the case of vision, a natural coordination of colors and the “ vibra¬ 
tory ” character in virtue of which images are prolonged and re¬ 
produced, and in the case of audition, the simultaneous and suc¬ 
cessive distinctions of tones. In both instances the passive intui¬ 
tions are due to the anatomical structure of the sense organs . 1 

Every modification leaves a trace in the organism, and thus 
influences later modes of existence. Yet there is no memory at 
the affective stage, since there is no consciousness. The feelings 
of attraction or repulsion, which become explicit in the conscious 
state, are often the results of affective modifications which the 
living being has sustained in a preconscious state . 2 The intui¬ 
tions also leave images which are reproduced spontaneously either 
in their original order or in some accidental arrangement. And 
the movements of simple reaction to stimulus leave after them 
tendencies from which spontaneous movements arise. Spontane¬ 
ous movements are accompanied by a sensation of a unique kind. 

1 Cf. CEuvres inedites, Vol. II, pp. 25-31. 

2 Cf. ibid., Vol. II, p. 35. 


4 6 


MAINE DE BIRAN’s PHILOSOPHY 


In its origin this sensation is not attended by the feeling of motor 
force ; but that feeling is immediately related to it.. At this point 
the feeling of effort or of the self arises. Thus sensation and af¬ 
fection are for Maine de Biran the means of developing active 
faculties, but they are not transformed into faculties of a higher 
order . 1 

The affective system just outlined is the foundation on which 
psychology is developed rather than a part of the science itself. 
With the sensitive system in the next section we have the begin¬ 
ning of the psychology in the strict sense of the term. The sharp 
distinction between the merely affective life and consciousness is 
also brought out in the work Division des faits psychologiques et 
physiologiques. Biran says : “ The self is primitive . . . there 
is nothing anterior or superior to it in the order of knowledge.” 2 
In another place he speaks of the line “ which separates forever 
the physical from the moral sciences, and especially the science 
of living and sentient organisms, physiology, from the inner science 
of beings which are intelligent and active, moral and free, psy¬ 
chology or ethics.” 3 

1 Cf op. cit., Vol. II ; p. 39. 

2 CEuvresphilosophiqu.es y Vol. Ill, p. 174. 

3 Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 144. 


SECTION VIII. 


Sensitive System. 

The second, or sensitive system, is constituted by the simple 
union of the self with the phenomena of the first system, already 
described. When the subject of effort distinguishes itself from 
the body as a whole, or the various parts of the body that are 
subject to the control of will, there is a natural foundation for 
judgment. This is the beginning of the relational life. Maine 
de Biran here follows the general scheme of classification which 
he adopted in the first system. The self is simply associated 
with impressions and invests them with the forms of space 
a.nd time ; it becomes a spectator without producing changes by 
an express act. By this simple union of the self with the affec¬ 
tions we have affective sensations, by the union of the self with 
intuitions, representative sensations, and by the union of the self 
with those effects of affections and intuitions on the organism, 
memory. 

To begin with the union of the self and the simple affections, 
we find that the resulting affective sensations are of two kinds, 
particular or general, according as they are, or are not, localized 
in the body. In the latter case the feeling of effort tends to be 
confused or absorbed in the affective sensation ; in the former 
case impression and resistance to effort are felt as occupying the 
same place, but are not confused. 

The intuitions differ from the affections in the fact that they 
become more distinct through continued repetition. The self, 
moreover, is united with them in a particular way. They can 
never obscure the feeling of the self, and when united with it the 
relation is preserved with more constancy and uniformity than in 
the former case. They also share in the primitive mode of 
coordination in space. The self from its very origin cannot be 
separated from this mode ; it does not, however, change the form 
of the intuition but receives that form ready made from laws of 
the organism which do not depend upon volition. 

47 


48 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


There are three kinds of memory to be distinguished, personal, 
modal, and objective. The first is a necessary condition of the 
other two. In fact, it is the simple union of the sense of effort 
with the organism. The sense of effort which does not result in 
perception, but only extends to the voluntary muscles, consti¬ 
tutes mere consciousness and also the duration of the self, or 
personal identity, that makes memory possible. An examination 
of the waking consciousness shows that the subject of effort 
recognizes immediately his identity, his continued duration; he 
senses that he is the same that he was before sleep. No special 
impression to motive distinct memories, nor any determinate rela¬ 
tion between the' present and past time is necessary in order to 
bring about the feeling of identity. For these reasons Maine de 
Biran concludes that personal identity is sensed independently of 
affections, or of the passive intuitions of sensibility ; that identity, 
or the duration of our own personal existence, is the cause of 
objective memory, not the result as Locke maintained ; 1 and 
that the feeling of uniform duration is the necessary antecedent 
of the idea of time. A very low degree of self-activity is suffi¬ 
cient to give us the idea of personal identity and the idea of dura¬ 
tion. But some degree of activity is indispensable. The idea of 
self and the idea of time do not result either from the play of 
merely external impressions on the organism or from the pure 
cognition of external relations. 

Modal memory refers to the quality of the modification which 
the self sustains. It is not inherent in simple affections, but only 
in sensations which are reproduced in a part of the body where 
they have previously been localized. These sensations are not 
recognized in their intensity but only in their general nature. 

In objective memory, it is no longer merely our own being 
which we recognize, either immediately or in an internally re¬ 
peated modification ; we recognize or judge that an external rep¬ 
resentation is similar to itself, by correlating with it our own 
sense of duration. We recognize the resemblance of an actual 
intuition, with an image which is the result of a previous intui¬ 
tion. The element of identity depends upon personal memory, 

1 Cf. Essay Concerning Human Understanding , II, Ch. XXVII, § n. 


SENSITIVE SYSTEM 


49 


while the element of resemblance, which is also essential to objec¬ 
tive memory, depends upon external representation. 

The most important fact to be noted concerning the sensitive 
system is that the self, when it unites with the simple modes of 
affection and intuition, invests them with the forms, which belong 
originally to it, and which are the conditions of its existence. 
The consequence is that all conscious phenomena necessarily in¬ 
volve the idea of cause. “ That cause is self if the mode is active 
or perceived as the actual result of a voluntary effort; it is not- 
self, if it is a passive impression sensed as opposed to that effort, 
or independent of all exercise of the will.” 1 “ The bcdief in a 

cause, not-self, differs essentially from the knowledge of an exter¬ 
nal object. The first can be based simply on a sort of resistance 
to even the vaguest desire; the second rests on perceptible re¬ 
sistance to effort, or determinate will. ” 2 In this connection we 
have to remember that the self for Biran is a fact of experience, 
a relation discovered by introspection, or else we are in danger 
"of giving his system too idealistic an interpretation. The affec¬ 
tions united to belief, or the vague idea of a productive cause, 
take the character of relations and are called emotions. 

There are as many kinds of emotions as there are affections as¬ 
sociated with the seif; but they can bt divided into two general 
classes, emotions of love and emotions of hate. The first in¬ 
cludes joy, hope, and security, according as the desired object 
conforms to our wish, or probably will thus conform, or is believed 
to be in our control. The emotions of hate are sadness, grief, and 
fear. In sadness we believe in the existence of a cause that can 
affect us disagreeably. In grief we believe that we cannot: 
escape, and in fear, that we probably shall not escape the effects 
of the object. The emotions can be called desires. Desire dif¬ 
fers essentially from need or want. The sentient being has; 
need of all impressions which tend to maintain or develop its ex- 
istence. And on that principle it seeks to avoid or repel all 
which are contrary to or destructive of existence. But the simple 
need does not make desire until it is joined to belief. Voluntary 

1 (Euvres inedites , Vol. II, p. 67. 

2 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 68. 


50 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


movement may result from the influence of desire, but it may 
also be contrary to desire. In this respect it differs from instinc¬ 
tive movement in which the will can have no part. 

With the consideration of affective sensation, representative 
sensation, memory, and emotion, Biran has accounted for all the 
classes of psychological facts which consist in the relation of the 
self in its simplest form, mere consciousness, with organic life. 
In the next section, the perceptive system will include facts which 
involve a greater prominence of the self, that is, a more active will. 


SECTION IX. 


Perceptive System. 

The attention is the basis of the third system of psychological 
facts, and it is only because attention is involved that the phe¬ 
nomena of the perceptive system differ from those of the sensitive 
system. Attention is nothing but the will in activity. But by 
this activity certain psychological modes acquire characters which 
they do not possess merely in their own nature and as subordi¬ 
nate to the laws of animal sensibility. Attention is a degree of 
effort superior to that involved in mere consciousness, that is, to 
the degree of effort which renders the external senses capable of 
perceiving or representing confusedly the objects that stimulate 
them. Here the effort is determined by an express will. The 
perception which was confused at first is isolated from all the 
accompanying impressions that tend to obscure it. The attention 
refers especially to the representative sensations which are already 
coordinated in space and time. It does not exercise any direct 
influence on the affective impressions. The act of attention does 
not render the impressions in themselves more vivid, but fixes the 
organs that are subject to the will, on the object, turns them 
away from all other causes of impressions, and thus renders the 
object relatively more clear. 

In reference to the connection of attention with the particular 
sense organs, Maine de Biran notes that attention is not related to 
impressions of tastes and odors in so far as they are passively 
excited or received, but only in as far as they depend upon vol¬ 
untary movement. The stimulus which sets up auditory sensa¬ 
tions is at first the occasion of merely affective phenomena. All 
distinct perception or special activity of the attention is excluded. 
But the impressions are coordinated in time; and under this form 
of intuition, the attention is able to give them a character of 
activity. We do not determine what we shall hear, but we can 

5 1 


52 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


listen , that is, give to the sounds a more or less sustained atten¬ 
tion which results in making the impressions more distinct . 1 

Attention is a very important factor in vision. The structure 
of the eye is peculiarly adapted to movement and consequently 
is under direct control of the will. The result for consciousness 
is very different, according as we simply see an object or observe 
it with “ active regard.” 2 In the first case, we have a number of 
confused images ; in the second case, one distinct image. With¬ 
out the attention, several objects are sensed passively and simul¬ 
taneously ; with the attention, there are rapid movements which 
coordinate objects into one whole. In this connection it is inter¬ 
esting to notice Maine de Biran’s account of the effect of atten¬ 
tion on after-images. He says, that he has often tried the experi¬ 
ment of looking at the glass of a well-lighted window. If he 
looked at the window for some time, while dreaming of something 
else, the image of the window remained in his eyes, and he could 
see it almost anywhere. But if he looked at the window atten¬ 
tively, with a view of preserving the image, there was no such 
result, he no longer had an image, but a very distinct memory of 
the object . 3 Attention makes the colors of an object relatively 
more clear and distinct. This effect, however, is brought about 
indirectly, that is, the influence of the attention is limited to the 
voluntary muscles, and does not extend to the fibers of the retina. 
Although attentive vision always proceeds by a succession of 
movements and is thus voluntary in principle, the movements 
become so rapid, easy, and automatic that they disappear from 
consciousness. The sensitive and motor being participates in 
vision, but does not realize, even in the most distinct percep¬ 
tion, its own active part. 

The sense of touch is especially important for Maine de Biran, 
because it is the means by which we have a direct knowledge of 
the not-self, and thus is the basis of the judgment of externality 
and of perception. The primitive fact of effort gives us a knowl¬ 
edge of our own body; but the degree of effort, which is the 
condition of mere consciousness is only sufficient to suggest an 

1 Cf. op. cit.y Vol. II, pp. 91-94. 

2 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 97. 

3 Cf. ibid., Vol. II, p. 97. 


PERCEPTIVE SYSTEM 


53 


indeterminate not-self. The tactual perceptions abstracted from 
resistance furnish unsupported images. It is the association of 
pressure with a resistance, sensed simultaneously in the same 
organ, which completes the relation of externality and establishes 
all our objective knowledge. The pressure alone, or the resist¬ 
ance alone, might be confused with an increase of inertia or with 
the resistance of the human body; but the union of a pressure 
and a resistance, which is opposed and not proportional to effort 
gives the idea of an external body. Neither visual nor tactual 
representations coordinated in space can give the idea of matter. 
The idea of a force capable of resisting voluntary movement, is 
needed as the substantial support of all representations. It is the 
center around which the sensations, especially those of pressure 
and color are grouped. In virtue of the association of the idea 
of cause with the sensation of pressure, that primary cause which, 
as the not-self of effort, is indeterminate becomes positive and 
determinate, as an absolute force. The absolute force differs very 
essentially from simple muscular resistance which always yields 
to the effort that constitutes the self. The latter is the essence 
of our own body, the immediate limit of effort; the former is the 
essence of external bodies, the mediate limit of effort. The exist¬ 
ence of the external force has need of a sign in order to manifest 
itself in consciousness; and the natural sign is the representation 
of tactual extent. All the sensations which suggest the idea of 
an indeterminate not-self can be construed as signs of that idea; 
but pressure, which is associated in an immediate manner with 
the feeling of absolute resistance, is in a particular manner the 
sign of the existence of a positive and determinate cause. Ex¬ 
ternal nature is known directly in touch, but in the other senses 
only indirectly and as they are coordinated with touch. 

After considering the origin of the judgment of externality, 
Maine de Biran analyzes the various forms that the judgment 
takes. In the primitive sense of effort we have a localization of 
the organs of the body. This can be effected without the sense 
of pressure, that is, by means of the simple resistance which the 
two hands, for example, could offer each other, even if they had 
lost all sensation. But this is not a localization by representation 


54 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


in space, it is a mere intuition that the body and its various parts 
coexist with the subject of effort. 

The substantial judgment is reached by abstracting from all the 
passive elements in the sense of touch and supposing a single organ, 
that is, by referring only to a unitary resistance which is essen¬ 
tially relative to unitary effort. To carry out this conception, it 
is not necessary to think of the resistance as absolutely unyield¬ 
ing unless we limit the subject of effort. According to Maine de 
Biran, the Stoical idea of a world-soul was founded on the thought 
of a will which is effective in the whole of nature. The impor¬ 
tant thing, however, is to consider the nature of the unitary resist¬ 
ance which opposes the will. If we abstract from all passive im¬ 
pressions and imagine a consciousness made up entirely of effort, 
then the object which human consciousness attains only by ab¬ 
straction, is for this hypothetical consciousness an immediate per¬ 
ception, the single real existence related to the self. This judg¬ 
ment is substantial because it is the basis of all the composite 
relations of conscious life. Owing to the presence of sensations, 
we never have the true unity of resistance perfectly simple in the 
mind ; but, nevertheless, it forms together with the unity of effort, 
the double unity, which is the foundation of all that we perceive, 
within or without ourselves. On this simple relation rest the 
primary qualities of Locke to which is accorded a real existence 
in bodies. The qualities constitute, for Biran, the essence of 
bodies and they are attributed to a unitary resistance. But he 
points out that impenetrability and inertia are more fundamental 
than extent and motion. 

The substantial judgment by which we attribute resistance and 
impenetrability to body carries with it a character of necessity ; 
the modal judgment, on the other hand, attributes the so-called 
secondary qualities, which are in reality simple signs, to the idea 
of body. It is an unfortunate misuse of language to call affec¬ 
tive sensations, secondary qualities of bodies. The affective sen¬ 
sation, that is, the simple union of the self with the affections, is 
experienced as belonging to our own body ; the resistance is ex¬ 
perienced as belonging to an external body. They are not con¬ 
fused, but as the second is constantly accompanied by the first a 


PERCEPTIVE SYSTEM 


55 


new relation, that of causality, is set up between them. The exer¬ 
cise of active touch does not, however, constitute the relation of 
causality ; but, by its influence, the indeterminate cause, or not- 
self, the object of belief, becomes determinate as a positive force 
which can modify the sensibility in a particular manner . 1 

There is a peculiar kind of non-affective impressions that oc¬ 
cupy an intermediate place between the modes of our sensibility 
and the modes of resistance. These impressions, Maine de Biran 
describes as perceptions united to the relation of externality. 
They are the subjects of his objective judgments. These per¬ 
ceptions are naturally projected into a vague space from which 
the self is distinguished in consciousness. They neither belong 
to the organs, like affective sensations, nor are they at first local¬ 
ized in the resisting continuum. The localization indicated in the 
objective judgment is the product of the experience of’touch 
and of voluntary movement. The perceptions of vision and pas¬ 
sive touch which are given at first in a two-dimensional non¬ 
resisting continuum receive a definite direction and distance from 
the practice of touch. 

Each of the sensations, abstracted from its affective character 
and also from its volitional elements, can be regarded as adapted 
to an aspect of the sensible world. They all are dependent 
upon the forms of sense, but none the less are caused by exter¬ 
nal bodies which are their permanent subjects. They stand in 
the same relation to the primary qualities of bodies that our 
affective sensations stand to the will. They are the true second¬ 
ary qualities. 

While the intuitions, or passive perceptions, leave after them 
images which are proportional to the original impressions ; the 
active perceptions, which are dependent upon the attention, leave 
representative ideas that share in their active nature. The intel¬ 
lectual operations which refer only accidentally to the passive 
impressions are always involved in active perception. The atten¬ 
tion is not related in the same manner to all the senses ; and 
consequently there is the problem of determining the relation of 
the various active faculties, memory, judgment, and comparison, 

1 Cf. op. cit ., Vol. II, pp. 130-131. 


56 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


considered as consecutive to the active exercise of vision and 
touch. 

The self can revive only what it has contributed to the im¬ 
pressions. In the case of vision the sphere of voluntary activity 
is limited to an attention successively directed to the various 
parts of the field already presented in passive vision. But in the 
case of touch, by a series of movements to each of which cor¬ 
responds a memory, the subject creates a unitary resistance. 
Here the associations are voluntary, as distinguished from the 
accidental associations of passive memory (the memory described 
under the sensitive system*). The visual images precede and 
complicate the recall of the forms, but the sense of touch gives 
us the true notion of forms. On the exercise of this active touch 
is founded the act of memory, in the strict meaning of the term, 
“ which is nothing but the repetition of the simple judgment of 
externality originally associated and repeated with each impres- 

_ • } y 2 

sion. 

At this stage we have Maine de Biran’s transition from atten¬ 
tion through comparison and generalization to the unifying func¬ 
tion of intelligence. Comparison is not absolutely different from 
attention, but is an immediate result of the activity of attention. 
Perception is always unitary, like attention, and consequently we 
never can compare two perceptions, but only one perception 
with the trace left by another impression . 3 If judgment is defined 
as the comparison of two ideas, the idea must mean more than an 
image. The idea must really involve three terms, the perceiving 
subject, the mode perceived and the exterior term to which the 
mode is related. In the comparison of two modes, for example, 
two colors attributed to the same object, the subject and the ex¬ 
terior term may remain the same, while only the modes com¬ 
pared vary. The result will be resemblance or diversity. 

Spontaneous generalizations precede all exercise of the active 
faculties. Beginning with these vague generalizations, the atten¬ 
tion abstracts and compares to form regular classes, which seem 

1 Cf. pp. 48, 49. 

2 CEuvres inedites , Vol. II, p. 151. 

3 Cf. ibid ., Vol. II, p. 155. 


PERCEPTIVE SYSTEM 


57 


to embrace all the phenomena of nature under general titles. 
These general ideas depend upon the modifications compared, and 
consequently have a value relative to our organism. The classifi¬ 
cations by comparison fail to deal satisfactorily with the reflective 
notions, such as substance and cause, since these ideas are iden¬ 
tical and universal, and cannot be coordinated by resemblances. 

The distinction between the abstract notions of reflection and 
the general ideas of comparison serves Maine de Biran both as a 
methodological principle and as a solution of the great question 
of mediaeval philosophy. The attention which compares variable 
modifications and fixes on relations of resemblance, furnishes the 
method of the physical and the natural sciences ; while reflection, 
which deals with the invariable elements of the primitive fact, the 
self and the resistance, together with their related phenomena, 
opens to us the mathematical and psychological sciences. The 
general ideas have no more value than the nominalist attributed 
to them ; but the reflective notions have all the being which the 
realist attributed to universals. 

After this very abstract analysis of the elements of an abstract 
psychological order , 1 Maine de Biran takes up the unifying func¬ 
tion of consciousness, as it appears in attention. The human 
mind, according to him, tends constantly to reduce all the variety 
of its modes, objects and representations, to a unity of idea. 
This principle applies alike to the direct perceptions of the senses 
and to the most elaborate constructions of intelligence. Our first 
sensible ideas, far from being given ready-made by the external 
world, are the products of a true activity, and the same rule holds 
of our conceptions of every order. The purely sentient being 
obeys laws of association which it cannot know. But the intelli¬ 
gent being prescribes the association of which he shall take ac¬ 
count. He chooses freely the elements that he shall unite, and 
and finding within the models for his constructions, he forms 
archetypal ideas of totality, harmony, and beauty, under which 
natural phenomena are classified. The faculty of creating these 
ideas is the highest attribute of intelligence. The principle of 

1 Cf. H. Taine, Philosophes classiques du XIXe siecle, p. 52, where Biran’s work 
is described as “ a mass of abstractions, a thicket of metaphysical thistles.” 


58 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


unity, which characterizes all intellectual combinations, does not 
appear in our merely sentient nature, but is based on the first 
exercise of perceptive activity. 

In this connection it is very important to keep in mind the 
general facts of Biran’s system, otherwise we might give this 
principle of unity a wider significance than it deserves. The 
principle of unity depends upon perceptive activity. Biran equates 
“perceptive activity” with “exercise of the attention ,” 1 and 
“attention is only the will itself in exercise.” 2 

The perceptive system occupies an important place in the psy¬ 
chology. After an analysis of the respective relations of atten¬ 
tion to the lower senses, to vision, and to touch, the transition 
is made through active touch to the judgment of an external 
world. The various forms of judgment, substantial, modal, and 
objective are then described. Next we have an account of mem¬ 
ory, in the active sense, that is, as involving attention, and as 
opposed to the passive forms treated earlier in the psychology. 
Following memory come comparison and generalization which 
lead to a distinction, very important from Biran’s point of view, be¬ 
tween abstract notions and general ideas. Finally the section is 
closed by a description of the unifying activity of consciousness 
which is, however, worked out in more detail in the next, or re¬ 
flective system. 

1 CEuvres inedites, Vol. II, p. 137. 

2 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 83. 


SECTION X. 


Reflective System. 

The fourth, or reflective, system, which includes the last divi¬ 
sion of psychological facts according to Maine de Biran’s classifi¬ 
cation, differs from the perceptive system in considering only the 
elements of unity or permanence in consciousness. Reflection is 
“that faculty by which the mind perceives, in a group of sensa¬ 
tions or in a combination of phenomena the common relation of 
all the elements to a fundamental unity.” 1 For example, several 
modes or qualities to a unity of resistance, several different effects 
to the same cause, variable modification to the same self, or re¬ 
peated movements to the same productive force. It is difficult 
for us to conceive the unity of self and of cause, of subject and 
object in the variety of sensations ; but the unity is not the less 
necessarily given to us with every perception or representation of 
which we are conscious. In another place Biran equates apper¬ 
ception and reflection and defines apperception as “ every impres¬ 
sion in which the self can recognize itself as productive cause, 
while it distinguishes itself from the sensible effect which its 
action determines.” 2 

Reflection has its origin in the inner perception of effort or of 
voluntary movement. In accordance with the method followed 
in the earlier parts of the psychological treatment, we first have, 
a reference to the organic condition which makes reflection^ 
possible. The problem here is to determine the means by which 
the primitive facts become explicit for consciousness. In the case 
of perception, it was active touch which opened the way to the: 
knowledge of the external world. The same means will not 
serve in the present case, because passive touch is mingled with 
active touch in the same sense organ. The desired ground for re¬ 
flection is a condition in which the sense of effort is united to some 
sense organs in such a way that its products shall assume a sen- 

i Op. cit., Vol. II, p. 225. 

2 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 9. 

59 


6o 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


sible form entirely subordinate to the will. The motor and sensi¬ 
tive being must refer movements to itself, as the unique cause, 
and also refer to itself the impressions which result from these 
movements. Then the attention which is always directed to the 
external results of voluntary acts will not differ from the reflection 
which is centered on the feeling of free power that effectualizes 
those acts. The required condition is found in the sense of 
hearing, taken in connection with vocal activity. In an analysis 
of the correspondence between vocal movements and auditory 
impressions, we may hope to discover the original laws of reflec¬ 
tion. While the voice and hearing are closely related, the sensi¬ 
tive and motor functions are naturally separated. This separation 
of the organ under control of the will from the sense organs pre¬ 
vents any confusion of volition and its results, but the close 
relation prevents any external interference. The activity which 
produces the vocal movements is reflected in perception. The 
individual thus has a redoubled perception of his own activity. 
“ In the free repetition of the acts that his will determines, he has 
the consciousness of the power that performs them. He perceives 
the cause in the effect and the effect in the cause; he has a dis¬ 
tinct feeling of the two terms of that fundamental relation, in a 
word, he reflects.” 1 Vocal activity and auditory sensation thus 
have characteristics which make them unique organs of reflection. 
Hearing may be called the special sense of the understanding. 
Biran considers that Locke was wrong in accepting reflection as 
an innate faculty, and that even Condillac did not carry analysis 
far enough in this particular . 2 

The first act of reflection is a consciousness of voluntary 
activity by means of some modification which results at least in 
part from that activity, that is, the perception of the cause in the 
effect that is sensed. From this perception, reflection goes on to 
distinguish elements which are coordinated in the same group, to 
observe the mode of their coordination, and finally to rise to 
universal ideas. By the first act of reflection, the subject per¬ 
ceives itself, as such, distinct from the resisting limit; and by a 

1 Op. cit., Vol. II, p. 232. 

* Cf. ibid., Vol. II, p. 235. 


REFLECTIVE SYSTEM 


61 


similar act of reflection the motor being, in articulating sounds, 
distinguishes the vocal effort from the effects produced. With 
this distinction signs are established. 

According to Maine de Biran, man speaks because he thinks, 
rather than thinks because he speaks. The first use of the intel¬ 
lectual sign (the word) is dependent upon the primitive fact of 
consciousness, that is, the immediate inner apperception of the 
subject of effort as distinct from the resisting limit. The 
impressions of the animal are confused. The sentient being does 
not distinguish ; it is not a self distinct from impressions. The 
defect is not in articulation, since some animals can imitate very 
well the sound of the human voice. 

The ground of the reflective notion is in us independent of all 
signs. But there is a great difference between confusedly per¬ 
ceiving several modifications united in a whole, and perceiving 
distinctly the abstract modifications. The latter perception is 
made possible by means of language signs. The individual per¬ 
ceives that he exists from the first exercise of effort; but it is 
still true that he does not have a distinct notion of his existence 
until he can connect the primitive judgment with a permanent 
sign. Similarly, in order to have a distinct notion of resistance, 
substance, unity, or cause, it is necessary to employ signs; for 
otherwise these ideas remain confused in the groups of which 
they constitute the essential forms. 

The treatment of words leads Maine de Biran to a further 
consideration of memoiy. He again very consistently empha¬ 
sizes its active character. Intellectual memory arises from a 
repetition of an act of will. It has to do only with perceptions 
which are related to the sense of effort. Mere affections fall 
beyond the power of memory. They may be accompanied by 
intuitions or perceptions, which can be remembered and thus we 
can know that we have experienced pleasantness or unpleasant¬ 
ness, but the simple affection cannot be revived. Memory differs 
from imagination. The first is an active faculty which conserves 
ideas by means of their signs; the second is a passive faculty 
which preserves traces of impressions. In every thought there 
is a hidden activity of the voice and the sense of hearing ; “ we 


62 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


speak to ourselves very softly.” 1 Since the signs are voluntary 
movements, they become obscured by habit and are lost in the 
concrete perceptions. Intuitions and images occur with the 
memory signs, but they follow their own laws. In the exercise 
of memory, the representation of ideas is subordinated to the 
recall of voluntary signs ; while in the exercise of imagination, 
the reproduction of images is independent of the accompanying 
signs. The result is that we can recall only phenomena in which 
we have had an active part, that is, that we ourselves have made, 
combined, or intentionally imitated. 

Reasoning is the most important topic that comes in for con¬ 
sideration under the reflective system. Maine de Biran criticizes 
the abstract view that reasoning is mere subsumption of particular 
under general ideas. The deduction from general to particular 
presupposes that the subject of the reasoning is a general term. 
The process is analytic and the relation between the terms is 
only quantitative. But the actual judgments of external experi¬ 
ence have individual and concrete subjects made up of diverse 
sensible qualities. Each judgment is a step in the analysis of the 
object; but the series of judgments of experience is not properly 
called reasoning, because there is no necessary relation between 
the judgments or between the series of judgments and the sub¬ 
ject. However far induction is carried we cannot reach a neces¬ 
sary relation. The major premise becomes false by representing 
a contingent fact as an absolute truth. True reasoning, on the 
other hand, depends upon necessary and eternal truths, such, for 
example, as are found in geometry and metaphysics. The purely 
logical necessity found in the analysis of a general idea, a neces¬ 
sity which consists in fidelity to the linguistic conventions that 
have created a collective sign, must not be confused with the 
necessity which results from the nature of things. Reasoning 
based on general ideas is hypothetical, since it treats the resem¬ 
blances, which determine the genus, as identities. Biran would 
agree with Hume that sciences based merely on external experi¬ 
ence have only a descriptive validity. Moreover, each philoso¬ 
pher maintains that mathematics (arithmetic and algebra) has 

1 Op. cit., Vol. II, p. 248. 


REFLECTIVE SYSTEM 


63 


universal validity . 1 But they they base their doctrine On different 
grounds : Hume on the principle that mathematical judgments 
are purely analytical ; Biran on the principle that they are 
deduced from a real fact, the resistance which meets the will. 
Hume denies the validity of metaphysics. Biran affirms its 
validity as a deductive science based on the psychological fact of 
effort . 2 

Reason “ is the faculty of perceiving relations between simple 
beings or between the different attributes of the same simple be¬ 
ing. It presupposes the faculty of conceiving or judging the 
existence of such a being ,” 3 that is, it involves reflective acts. 
Under this condition the subjects are identical and not merely 
similar. Since the relations are independent of the modifications 
of sensibility we have the required characteristic of necessity. 
Attributes are related to subjects, not as the particular to the 
general, but by necessary dependence. They arise by the de¬ 
velopment of the subject. Judgments which express this depen¬ 
dence are synthetic. Analysis is merely a preparation which 
stops at the simple subjects, that is, at the starting point of 
reasoning. For example, by acts of abstract reflection, we reach 
the distinct conception of the two elements of the fact of con¬ 
sciousness, the self and the resistance. It is impossible to reduce 
these ideas of real existences by any further analysis. f 

After having perceived the relations of the attribute to the sub¬ 
ject in a judgment, the mind perceives the relation of several judg¬ 
ments to each other, or the necessary dependence in which the 
several attributes stand to the same essence. “ Reasoning thus 
consists in a succession of synthetic judgments which have a 
common real subject,” 4 and which are united so that the mind 
perceives their reciprocal dependence, without having recourse to 
any idea foreign to the essence of the subject. 

Less abstractly stated, Maine de Biran finds that the principle : 
“ All that is true of a . . . class is true of all the individuals 
comprised in the class ; relates only to conditional truth. For 

1 Cf Treatise of Human Nature, Bk. I, Pt. Ill, §1. 

2 Cf p. 66. 

3 CEuvres inedites, Vol. II, p. 263. 

* Ibid., Vol. II, p. 263. 


64 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


classes are the work of the mind.” This is the fact when it is a 
question of relations perceived between qualities which vary in the 
individuals compared. But the case is different when it is a 
question of universal ideas or essential attributes, that are always 
the same in all objects to which thought refers them, and which 
are necessary conditions of all possible representation. Here we 
are dealing not with a kind or class, but with an individual. The 
principle of the syllogism can then be stated as follows : “ All 
that is true of the subject of a universal idea is necessarily and 
identically true of the same subject considered in any other rela¬ 
tion or combination.” 1 

Universal ideas are clearly illustrated by the science of mathe¬ 
matics, which, according to Maine de Biran, is not a science of 
conditional truth, but a science of true relations that subsist be¬ 
tween noumena. These relations remain always the same, they 
are independent of all variations of sensibility, and they would 
not change by reason of any difference in the organization of the 
beings who perceive them. 

Universal ideas, then, must have a basis in fact. Disregard 
of this necessity is the error of the philosophers who have ab¬ 
stracted from the foundation of reason and retained merely the 
form that it takes in language. By isolating the purely intel¬ 
lectual processes from the accompanying mental processes, they 
have attempted to reduce all logic to a universal algebra of 
ideas. But since the relations between ideas depend absolutely 
upon the nature of the ideas, the signs which express those rela¬ 
tions, and consequently the logical forms which are functions of 
the signs, cannot be abstracted from the ideas themselves. 
That is, the intellectual process of determining the relation of the 
ideas can never be separated from the factual character of the 
ideas. 

The actual idea includes all the attributes which make up, for 
us, the existence of the object, together with all the properties 
which the senses can discover. The coexistence of these attri¬ 
butes and qualities depends upon successive judgments of ex¬ 
perience. The function of reason is to determine how all these 
1 Op. cit ., Vol. II, p. 267. 


REFLECTIVE SYSTEM 


65 

properties are different expressions of the same essence. “ Be¬ 
ginning with a primary attribute, for example, thought, or the 
feeling of individuality which constitutes the subject a self, or the 
resistance which constitutes for us what we call body, we deduce 
all the other attributes or modes that we know by inner feeling 
in the subject or by representation in the object.” 1 The depend¬ 
ence of the idea upon the primitive fact is the first condition of 
reasoning. To reduce the process to a play of language is to 
abstract from the intellectual acts that unite judgments with each 
other and with immediate intuition. 

The object of perception is given to the mind as simple. Per¬ 
ception is thus the immediate view of a simple and real subject. 
No further analysis can make the object itself more clearly per¬ 
ceived than it is by the simple fact of its immediate presence in 
the mind. But by abstraction from the notion of the perceived 
object we can discover in that notion elementary relations, which 
are distinguished by the aid of signs, but which are not them¬ 
selves objects of perception. Thus, while we distinguish by 
signs the self, or effort, from resistance, there is no real percep¬ 
tion of the self separated from the feeling of resistance. When 
the signs divide the totality of the object of perception into parts, 
the understanding sees these parts as necessarily related to the 
existence of the whole. Here begin perceptive judgments which 
develop the essence of the subject, not by making the notion 
more clear or distinct in itself, but by making it more adequate. 
They express the relation of the elements to the whole from 
which they are inseparable. The result is the logical composi¬ 
tion of the object, the simple nature of which does not in reality 
change. All conception of necessary relation is thus connected 
with perceptive judgments. The possibility of correlation with 
perception becomes the mark which distinguishes the truth of 
absolute certainty from simple belief. 

After the description of perceptive judgment we can easily 
understand Maine de Biran’s conception of deduction. In his 
view, perceptive truths, that is, the facts of inner experience and 
their immediate consequences form the basis of all the work of 


Op. cit ., Vol. 11, p. 270. 


66 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


the reason. The perceptive judgments are from their very nature 
undemonstrable. They are independent one of another, and con¬ 
sequently cannot be the result of any form of reasoning. But 
there are secondary truths which are related to each other and to 
the primary truths. Deduction is the process of arriving at these 
secondary truths and of determining their relation to fundamental 
truths. While the perceptive judgment is always actual, that is, 
it cannot be recalled without the immediate recognition of its 
proof, the case is different with deduced truths. When they are 
recalled they do not become self-evident, yet they are certain, 
for the intellectual memory, in recalling them, recalls at the same 
time their necessary dependence upon an established first prin¬ 
ciple. Without confidence in the memory no reasoning could 
take place; the mind would never get beyond the narrow limits 
of primary truths. Since the certainty of deduction is essentially 
different from the certainty of perception, there can be a condi¬ 
tional certitude without the slightest degree of absolute truth. 
Conditional truth only presupposes that the chain of reasoning 
has been regular; it has exactly the same value as the postulate 
from which it is deduced. 

As already stated Maine de Biran makes psychology a pure 
deductive science. The elements of the primitive fact, when 
separated by reflective analysis from their synthetic union with 
impressions, become the true subjects of reasoning. Biran holds 
that all ideas which give phenomena a fixed character, or which 
establish necessary relations proceed from the self and not from 
sensations. The two terms of the fact of consciousness, effort 
and resistance, are the primitive and real subjects. Reduced to 
their essential attributes, they form the respective objects of the 
two sciences of pure reason, psychology and mathematics. The 
sciences of description and classification, which are based upon 
resemblances dependent upon our organism, are conditional. Nat¬ 
ural science is truly deductive only because its facts involve the 
application of causal necessity. 

Resistance as a factual unity is discovered by reflective abstrac¬ 
tion. The result is the first mathematical conception. The idea 
is simple and individual; unity is subject or common antecedent 


REFLECTIVE SYSTEM 


67 


of all numerical relations. The judgments which have to do with 
that unity make up arithmetic. Geometry has its origin in the 
same real fact. The line is the coordination of resisting unities. 
In these sciences we can go on indefinitely without taking account 
of any foreign elements. The identical nature of the elements 
establishes the universal and necessary character of the relations. 

Psychology is also an absolute spience. It differs from mathe¬ 
matics in the fact that its subject (effort) admits of no schematism, 
or representation, similar to geometrical figures. While the self 
cannot be analyzed, it nevertheless occasions the reflective judg¬ 
ments which make up psychology. Identity, freedom, causality 
of the self and of the not-self, the differences between effort and 
its limit, are deduced from the primitive fact by a series of identi¬ 
cal judgments. They are merely that fact seen from different 
points of view. Maine de Biran is never tired of insisting that it 
is not a question of “ logical identities or of conditional truths, 
but of real identities, of inner facts, of absolute truths established 
by the inner sense.” 1 

Some of the natural sciences have a certainty only secondary 
to that of mathematics and psychology. There are two kinds of 
causality to be distinguished, “efficient” and “physical.” In 
“ efficient causality,” “ we conceive distinctly how a cause being 
given in its most immediate effect . . . other facts must necessarily 
follow.” 2 In physical causality, the cause is not given or con¬ 
ceived in any effect which can be its immediate expression ; and 
“ the mind is limited to observing experimentally the order of 
phenomenal succession.” 3 Here the anterior phenomenon is the 
physical cause. Now in cases where there is an efficient cause as 
a first effect or known tendency, and we are dealing simply with 
this efficient cause and with the simple modes of space and time, 
we have certainty. This is true in regard to Newton’s deduction 
of the system of the world, for he treated forces mathematically, 
not physically. 

In true deductions, that is, those of the sort just mentioned, 
there is no presupposition ; all is certain. There are, however, 

1 Op cit ., Vol. II, p. 324. 

2 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 330. 

3 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 331 - 


68 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


intellectual operations which take account of the mode of action 
of physical causes. The result is an explanation of a fact of 
experience, which has only a probable truth. In this method we 
always have the three steps, experience, hypothesis, and compari¬ 
son of the hypothesis with the facts. 

The fourth system concludes Maine de Biran’s account of psy¬ 
chological facts. At first, he shows in detail how we arrive at 
an explicit perception of the self. The remainder of the section 
is given up to the application of the self, and of the other princi¬ 
ples of unity which go with the perception of the self, i. e., sub¬ 
stance, and. causality, to the problem of knowledge. Reason is 
described as depending on these ultimate factual principles. The 
processes of induction and deduction are evaluated and the funda¬ 
mental distinction between the abstract factual notion and the 
general idea is again emphasized. Finally the validity of scien¬ 
tific knowledge is investigated and a natural classification of the 
sciences is presented. Before considering Biran’s treatment of 
aesthetic, ethical, and religious problems, we shall briefly com¬ 
pare the psychology with the views of Condillac. 


SECTION XI. 

Comparison of Biran’s Psychologie with Condillac’s 
Traite des sensations. 

A comparison of the psychology with Condillac’s Traite des 
sensations shows the intimate relation in which Maine de Biran 
stood to this philosopher. It is not to depreciate Biran’s origi¬ 
nality or the value of his leading ideas that attention is called to 
this similarity. In the early part of the treatment it was shown 
in what respects Biran differed from Condillac; and constant at¬ 
tention has been given to the emphasis which the former placed 
upon the idea of activity. But here, having finished the account 
of the psychology, it seems necessary briefly to indicate the 
resemblance of that work to the Traite des sensations. 

This similarity extends not only to the general structure of the 
work, but even to the solution of many important problems. 
First in reference to the principal divisions, we have found that 
Biran distinguishes four general systems under which he classi¬ 
fies psychological phenomena. There is the affective system 
which has to do with sensations abstracted from the idea of self, 
and with the simple modes of pleasure and pain. Then comes 
the sensitive system, the first in the order of consciousness, in 
which the self is present with the phenomena, an “ interested ” 
but inactive spectator. Next in order is the perceptive system, 
in which the self is an active factor in phenomena. And finally 
the reflective system, which treats of the active elements in con¬ 
sciousness without reference to the merely passive modes. Turn¬ 
ing to the Traite des sensations , we find that here also are four 
general divisions. The first deals “with the senses which by 
themselves do not judge of external objects,” 1 and shows “the 
influence of pleasures and pains .” 2 The second part has to do 
with the commencement of the animal life, with the stage in 
which the statue for the first time “can speak of self ,” 3 and with 

1 Traite des sensations, p. 11. 

2 Ibid., p. 22. 

* Ibid., II, Ch. I, §3. 

f'9 


70 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


the beginning of memory . 1 The third part relates to the judg¬ 
ments in regard to the external object. The fourth part shows 
“ how we become capable of prevision and industry,” “what our 
first judgments are concerning the goodness and beauty of 
things. In a word it is seen how man having been at first only 
a sentient animal becomes a reflective animal .” 2 

The similarity of the works is still more striking when we 
consider the answers that are given to special questions. To 
take an important instance, the origin of the judgment of exter¬ 
nality, for Maine de Biran, is found in the resistance which meets 
the active exercise of the sense of touch. Were it not for this 
sense no other forms of sensation could ever give us knowledge 
of the external world. Condillac had already given the same 
solution to the problem. The entire third part of the Traite des 
sensations describes “ how touch teaches the other senses to 
judge of external objects.” Chapter four of this part explains 
why we attribute to vision an independence of function which it 
does not in reality possess. We have seen that Maine de Biran 
made the judgment of externality depend upon active, not upon 
passive, touch. Condillac after maintaining that no knowledge 
of external objects can be derived from olfactory, auditory, gus¬ 
tatory, and visual sensations, says: “Just as certainly there 
would be the same ignorance with the sense of touch if it re¬ 
mained motionless.” 3 We have then the origin of the judgment 
of externality explained by the same fact, the activity of the or¬ 
gan of touch. The difference is in the introspective account of 
the psychical accompaniment of the act. With Maine de Biran 
it is an act of a self; with Condillac it is the movement of an 
organism. 

This is a single instance. We find the same similarity and the 
same difference in the accounts given of other psychological phe¬ 
nomena. For example, the idea of self depends according to Con¬ 
dillac on the sense of touch. By this sense the statue becomes more 
than a mere modification of sensations. According to Maine de 
Biran, the idea of self depends upon the fact that our effort meets a 

1 Op. cit., II, Ch. XI. 

2 Ibid., p. 39. 

3 Ibid., p. 29. 


B1RAN AND CONDILLAC 


7 1 


limit in the muscular sensation of our own body. The similarity 
is obvious. It is unnecessary to go into further detail to emphasize 
the close connection between Maine de Biran’s philosophy and 
sensationalism. Each is a form of empiricism, a development of 
certain phases of Locke’s system. Each is really a theory of 
knowledge which involves a realistic ontology. The great differ¬ 
ence between Biran and Condillac is in the idea of self-activity, 
which is almost absent from the philosophy of the latter, while 
it is the leading idea in Biran’s system. The supervention of the 
self, as an active principle, upon the phenomena of the “affective 
system ” produces the phenomena of the “ sensitive system,” and 
it is the increasing influence of the active principle that explains 
the higher psychological facts. With Condillac, on the other 
hand, the problem is to show how the higher mental functions are 
built up out of pure sensations, without the intervention of any 
higher principle. Biran’s work is in a certain sense a return from 
Condillac to Locke, but there is a difference between the treatment 
of self-activity in the philosophy of Biran and in that of Locke. 
With Locke reflection is merely one source of knowledge; with 
Biran effort is a constituent factor in all consciousness. In this 
respect Biran’s position is an advance upon that of Condillac. 
But his work rather shows the difficulties in sensationalism than 
presents any self-consistent solution. His principle is subjective 
and psychological to the end. There is no satisfactory account 
of the universal and necessary character of the categories of 
thought. Biran’s historical significance consists mainly in the 
personal influence which he exerted on Cousin. 


SECTION XII. 


Ethics and Aesthetics. 

At this point we shall briefly consider Maine de Biran’s very 
fragmentary account of ethics and aesthetics. In connection with 
the third system described above, he gives a psychological basis 
for ethics. He speaks approvingly of the moral sense theory. 
Human actions and natural phenomena affect us very differently. 
Although the moralist can combine under a sign different ele¬ 
ments which are not combined in nature ; the combinations thus 
formed to represent real or possible action are not arbitrary, for 
not all elements are equally compatible with each other. The 
factor which determines the compatibility of elements, and so the 
possibility of their connection, is the natural constitution of the 
moral sense. Combinations which affect the moral sense in a 
definite manner, or form the basis of the various classes of actions, 
arouse particular feelings of attraction or aversion, of love or hate. 
The qualities or actions which are suited to excite the same feel¬ 
ings in the mind must have a resemblance. It is this definite 
reaction of human nature which constitutes the unity of a class of 
actions. This is the source of the common character found in 
the general ideas of obligation, virtue, and vice. Despite the 
variety of elements, all the mixed modes admit of a certain kind 
of real unity. 

The moral constitution of man, although variously modified, 
displays a common character in all individuals. But owing to 
the variety of feelings with which moral ideas are associated, it is 
hopeless to attempt a rigorous application of the mathematical 
method. There are, however, certain limits imposed by inner 
experience from which moral ideas can never escape. 

In the lower systems, affection precedes judgment; but the 
higher phenomena of the third system, e. g ., the consciousness 
of the beautiful, wonder, and admiration are consecutive to judg¬ 
ment. Surprise is an emotion that arises from a contrast be¬ 
tween an earlier state of sensibility and a state which a new im- 

72 


ETHICS AND AESTHETICS 


73 


pression tends to excite. It is strictly an emotion rather than a 
sentiment since it is anterior to all comparison. When surprise 
is very vivid fear results; when it only moderate wonder is pro¬ 
duced. In the latter case, the subject tries to attribute the new 
factor to some natural cause. With success in this attempt 
there arises the agreeable feeling which attends the discovery of 
a new relation, with failure the wonder simply increases. Maine 
de Biran agrees that wonder is the source of science, since “ it 
gives movement to the human mind . . . and ends by reducing 
to intelligence the laws which control the universe .” 1 Ad¬ 
miration is not a kind of wonder (Descartes) through it may suc¬ 
ceed surprise. The better we know what is great and beautiful 
in itself, the more we are struck with admiration. Wonder and 
admiration are essentially different from emotions, because they 
are much more closely related to ideas, yet they do not influence 
the ideas directly through belief. They have a certain constant 
character from the fact that they occur whenever attention is 
directed to particular relations of ideas. Emotions, on the other 
hand, presuppose anterior dispositions of sensibility without which 
they do not arise . 2 

Maine de Biran briefly traces the respective influence of the 
emotions and of the ideas with their related feelings on the con¬ 
duct of the moral agent. The individual, who is determined by 
emotion, is bound to the attraction of the present pleasure; the 
individual, who is dominated by ideas, follows fixed lines of con¬ 
duct. Attention can make an idea vivid enough to overcome 
the immediate impulses of sensation. Activity is thus the condi¬ 
tion of moral preference. The guarantee of freedom is the fact 
that, while sensibility is limited, the power of the will is suscep¬ 
tible of indefinite increase. Freedom arises from the opposition 
which exists between the emotions and the higher feelings, and 
from the possibility of choice that results from that opposition . 3 

In the early part of the Fondements de la morale et de la reli¬ 
gion, we have Maine de Biran’s nearest approach to the formula¬ 
tion of an ethical system. A brief notice of this work will sup- 

1 (Euvres inedites , Vol. II, p. 211. 

2 Cf. ibid., Vol. II, p. 212. 

3 Cf. ibid., Vol. II, pp. 215-216. 


74 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


plement his fragmentary treatment of the moral sentiments in the 
psychology. 

The relations of man with man are founded on a sympathy 
which is contemporaneous with the very existence of the individ¬ 
ual. They are distinct from the relations which man sustains 
to the rest of nature. In order to be moral, the sentient and 
intelligent being must attribute to other beings like himself, a 
self, a will, and feelings and rights similar to his own. The 
moral consciousness “so to speak sees itself in another as in an 
animate mirror.” 1 In this moral consciousness, the personal 
affections are transformed into expansive feelings. At times 
Biran describes this transformation as the result of 'sympathy in 
the more affective sense. He says : “ The strong measures his 
right by his strength ; the weak submits to the law of necessity. 
But give to the strong a feeling of sympathy and love, and he 
will aid rather than oppress the weak, because the suffering and 
oppression of his weak fellow cause him suffering.” 2 And again 
he says : “ It is first in the family that the feelings of benevolence, 
protection, and sympathy arise and develop.” 3 At other times 
Biran gives a more rationalistic account of the relation of the in¬ 
dividual and society. “ What is right in the consciousness of the 
individual . . . becomes duty in the consciousness of the ethical 
person who attributes the same right to. other persons.” 4 The 
principle of all virtuous action is in the need of approval from 
others, “ that is, from the reason itself in which all participate 
equally .” 4 The principle of duty has nothing in common with 
modifications of individual sensibility, or with special relations of 
particular persons, but belongs to free beings in virtue of their 
participation “in that reason which illuminates all intelligences.” 

The variations in actual morality are recognized and are 
explained as due to failure in estimating the real significance of 
acts, or in finding the proper means of realizing ends. “ There 
is at least a very general agreement in the manner of judging 
qualities which are truly worthy of esteem (those which tend to 

1 Op. cit ., Vol. Ill, p. 33. 

2 Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 36. 

3 Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 48. 

iJbid., Vol. Ill, pp. 37-38. 


ETHICS AND ^ESTHETICS 


75 


the perfection of the individual or the race).” 1 “ There is a'com- 

mon principle in the diverse acts which receive the general ap¬ 
probation of men.” 2 Morality seems relative because judgment 
is passed upon acts rather than upon motives. 

Esthetic ideas are closely related to moral ideas. Both classes 
emanate from the same active faculty of the mind ; and each class 
is related to certain feelings which determine it, and which it 
always excites. The imagination can never free itself entirely 
from the feeling elements on which it is established. There is, 
however, a lesser degree of universality in aesthetic than in moral 
ideas ; but in each case there is an absolute as well as a relative 
element. Beauty applies to totalities of perceptions, of images, 
or of intellectual ideas, which are combined in a certain order. 
But when we attempt to define the order more exactly we pass 
from general to particular ideas, and each person represents the 
order by the types or combinations which are most agreeable to 
him. Consequently there is great divergence of opinion in regard 
to what constitutes beauty. 

The impressions which immediately affect the sensibility, such 
as odors, tastes, or tactual qualities, have nothing in common with 
the idea of the beautiful. They may be agreeable, but not beauti¬ 
ful. Relation with the active faculty of perception, judgment, or 
comparison is essential to constitute beauty. That is, a judgment 
is necessary to establish the feeling of the beautiful, while a simple 
tone or color may condition an agreeable feeling. Beauty requires 
a more or less extensive combination of perceptions and ideas. 
And a combination to be beautiful must not only be formed of 
perceptive elements, each of which is pleasant in itself, but there 
must be besides these elements a harmony, which relates or 
unites them, which represents to the mind a multiplicity under 
the form of unity. We do not know the principle in virtue of 
which perceptive elements form a unity. In the case of tones 
there is a basis for the principle in nature; but we cannot tell 
why the tones, the stimuli of which stand in certain numerical 
relations, are beautiful. And we cannot carry over the laws of 
harmony from the auditory into the other systems of sensation. 

1 Op. cit ., Vol. Ill, p. 41. 

* Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 42. 


76 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


Certain groups of qualities appear to us naturally beautiful, other 
groups do not. The fact depends upon the nature of our con¬ 
stitution and the natural relations of our perceptive faculty with 
objects. We can discover the relations in experience, but cannot 
explain them a priori. The unity, symmetry, or order, depends 
on laws of perception and comparison. The combinations in 
which these laws are observed arouse in us the feeling of the 
beautiful. Nature does not always satisfy the demand thus set 
up ; the result is an ideal of beauty. 

There is in art a certain amount of comparison, abstraction, 
and combination; but the resemblances, which determine the 
class of objects that the understanding unites under the same 
sign, differ essentially from the analogies, to which the imagina¬ 
tion refers in satisfying the needs of the aesthetic sensibility. All 
the qualities which tend to excite in the mind the same feeling 
have the resemblance which is necessary to constitute them into 
a single class. In the beautiful we have a combination of means 
converging towards a single end. 

Each art has its specific and limited domain. Painting and 
sculpture reach the mind by means of colors, forms, or positions. 
There can be only one time of action, a single situation. Their 
effect is consequently immediate. Music influences the mind 
without having recourse to images, it sets up a play of imagina¬ 
tion which may be of indefinite duration. As our vivid feelings 
are developed in time, music will always have a higher value 
than painting and sculpture. Poetry also realizes its combina¬ 
tions in time. 

We cannot reduce the principle of art to imitation of nature. 
The feelings which art arouses are inherent in human nature. 
Artists discover relations between these feelings and apply to 
them combinations of elements modeled by the imagination. It 
is true that some elements are derived by imitation, but the 
power of the artist rests in the beauty of expression, not in that 
of imitation. Any form of imitation carries with it the idea of 
limit. Art, on the other hand, turns our view toward the infinite. 
It makes us feel what cannot be shown in sense or represented 
in imagination . 1 

1 Cf. op. cii., Vol. II, pp. 198-199. 


ETHICS AND ESTHETICS 


77 


The relation of the absolute to the relative element in art is 
determined in the same manner as the relation of ideas of reflec¬ 
tion to general ideas. Relative beauty corresponds to resem¬ 
blances inherent in the nature of the combined ideas, and conse¬ 
quently is variable. Absolute beauty refers to the forms which 
constitute the unity of the combination of ideas. Artistic good 
taste is merely the feeling of order and harmony which looks for 
unity in the variety of modifications. Taste is wanting, where 
the unity is neglected and attention is directed only to the variety 
and detail of sensations, e . g., in the Gothic architecture, where 
the grandeur of the whole is sacrificed to superficial ornament, 
and in painting where truth of design is sacrificed to richness of 
color. 

It is possible to accustom ourselves to combinations of sensible 
qualities, which lack unity, until we derive pleasure from them. 
An object which is not beautiful may please by association of 
ideas ; and conversely, an object which is beautiful may not please 
because it is related by the imagination to some painful idea. But 
the rules of beauty, though they may be forgotten or unknown, 
are not the less eternal and invariable. Thus the external senses 
and the imagination are not the final judges of real beauty. The 
great artist by reflection and profound study finds the sources of 
beauty beyond the sphere of sensation in the fixed relations and 
proportions of parts with each other and with a unity. When 
he has seized the form in the abstract, he individualizes it by 
combinations of colors and figures which are directed to sense. 
The individual picture, however, possesses a real beauty which 
the senses alone cannot apprehend. The final product is a unity 
through the artist’s creative imagination, not through the arti¬ 
ficial aggregation of parts naturally dissociated. The genius 
can appreciate intellectual beauty, apart from any sensible mani¬ 
festation, in a unity constructed by the scientific imagination, e. g., 
in the Copernican view of the solar system. Thus a real unity 
of idea lies at the base of all artistic conceptions . 1 

1 Cf. op. cit.y Vol. II, pp. 204-206. 


SECTION XIII. 


Religion. 

Before concluding our account of Maine de Biran’s philosophy, 
we must‘notice the characteristics of his later development, as 
they are embodied in the Anthropologie , and in the Fondaments 
de la morale et de la religion. As already stated, Naville in his 
general introduction to the works of Biran distinguishes a third 
stage after the year 1818. But this distinction, as well as his 
separation of the first and second periods, seems somewhat arbi¬ 
trary. It is true that questions are taken up in the later work 
which are not treated in the psychology. There is an increasing 
emphasis placed on man’s wider relations to society and the world. 
But this is not a development of Biran’s philosophy to another 
stage ; it is rather a consideration of problems that were neglected 
in the psychology. The fact that his principle of self-activity 
does not adequately explain the ethical and religious phases of 
human experience is not sufficient reason for considering Biran’s 
later work as a new stage. The truth is that his ethics and 
especially his philosophy of religion is incompletely and unsatis¬ 
factorily worked out. In the Anthropologie there is a comparison 
of the values of Christianity and of Stoicism. Ethics as a system 
of human conduct is not worked out in detail in this place. 
The treatment of religion is confined to the third part of the An¬ 
thropologie , the Vie de Vesprit , while the first and second parts, 
the Vie animale and the Vie humaine , are less detailed restate¬ 
ments of the position presented in the Psychologie. 

After a somewhat minute examination of the last-named work, 
it will be unnecessary to go into an elaborate exposition of the 
Anthropologie. The first and second parts especially may be 
passed over, since we have considered them in our study of the 
nature of effort. Consequently we shall limit the treatment to a 
notice of some of the principal points of the third part. 

The essential feature of the Vie de Vesprit is the consideration 

78 


RELIGION 


79 


of a third form of life, higher than the animal life or the active 
life of man, that is, a life “ which is entirely spiritual.” 1 Man 
stands intermediate between God and nature. In virtue of this 
position he possesses freedom in his activity. At a lower stage 
the personality of the soul is annihilated in animal life, at a higher 
stage it is lost in God. “ Perhaps man holds in the scale of 
spirits the rank that the coral holds among sentient beings,” 2 but 
man is endowed with an activity by which he can rise in the 
scale. The second life is given to man as a means to the third, 
in which he is free from the bondage of the affections and pas¬ 
sions. Christianity alone reveals to man this third life above 
human sensibility, reason, or will. Stoicism did not get beyond 
the second life and exaggerated the power of the will and of 
reason over the passions and affections of the sensitive life. But 
there is something more to be explained, that is, “ the absorption 
of the reason and the will in a supreme force, an absorption 
which without effort establishes a state of perfection and happi¬ 
ness.” 3 “ This is the mystical life of enthusiasm, the highest 
degree to which the soul can attain in identifying itself with its 
supreme object.” 4 The necessity of the second life, as a means 
to the realization of the third, is emphasized. The absorption is 
described as “calm” succeeding “storms,” and as “ repose of 
the soul after and not before effort.” 5 But, on the other hand, it 
is not absolutely in the power of the soul to pass from an inferior 
to a superior stage. The individual “needs a support beyond 
himself. Religion comes to his aid.” 6 

The work of the year 1818, De la morale et de la religion, 
gives a proof for the existence of God. “ The principle of caus¬ 
ality is in us, and by establishing this principle in its source and 
applying it with a sane reason, we can rise from the personality 
of the self, which is a relative and particular cause effecting bodily 
movement, to the personality of God, which is the absolute and 

1 QLuvres inedites , Vol. Ill, p. 5 * 7 * 

2 Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 517. 

3 Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 520. 

*Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 521. 

5 Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 525. 

6 Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 531. 


So 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


universal cause of the order of the world and of his own exis¬ 
tence.” 1 Religion, for Maine de Biran, depends upon morality 
for its content in the sense that while morality is independent of 
religion, the latter “ presupposes a moral sentiment or relation 
of sympathy and love between sentient feeble beings and the 
supreme cause on which they depend for their modifications and 
even for their existence.” 2 

A review of the main facts of this section shows clearly that 
the idea of will is involved throughout the philosophy of religion, 
and thus invalidates a complete separation between Biran’s 
second and third periods. The life of activity is a necessary means 
to the religious life. The proof for the existence of God is based 
directly on will. The personality of God is thought after the 
analogy of the personality of the self. And finally in the last 
quotation, the third, or religious, form of life is explicitly made 
dependent upon morality. The element of mysticism which does 
appear in Biran’s latter writings is not made a leading principle 
of explanation. It is, however, an important supplement to the 
idea of activity in the account of social and religious phenomena. 

1 Op. cit., Vol. Ill, p. 52. 

2 Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 48. 


SECTION XIV. 


Biran’s Relation to Subsequent Thinkers : Cousin, Comte, 
Renouvier, and Fouillee. 

In conclusion it seems fitting to consider very briefly the place 
that Biran holds in the subsequent philosophy of his country. 
It would, however, be impossible within the present limits to 
make an exhaustive study of his influence upon later writers. 
Consequently this section will be devoted to a consideration of 
his relation to a few of the typical leaders of thought during the 
last century. And in this way a general view of his historical 
position may be gained. 

Maine de Biran is more closely related to Cousin than to any 
other subsequent philosopher. Biran’s work, however, is only 
one of the many sources from which the head of the eclectic 
philosophy drew in constructing his system. And in this, as in 
other instances, Cousin did not borrow uncritically from an earlier 
thinker; but aimed to found his work upon observation of facts 
and induction. We are very fortunate in regard to our knowl¬ 
edge of the relation between Biran and Cousin. The latter has 
left us a very careful criticism of Biran’s doctrine of the direct 
perception of the self through experiences of will or effort. 
Cousin’s criticism is all the more valuable because there is na 
circumstance which could have induced him to accentuate the 
differences between his own position and that of Biran. Not 
only were the philosophers compatriots, but the finest personal 
relation subsisted between the elder and the younger man.. 
Further, the strenuous advocacy of the freedom of the will would 
tend to draw them closer together. Finally, Cousin was the first 
to edit the works of Biran and thus to introduce him to the philo¬ 
sophical world. The consideration of these facts lends a peculiar 
interest to the criticism. 

Cousin finds that Biran was right in emphasizing personality 
and in showing the identity between will and attention. More- 

81 


82 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


over, the account of the origin of the idea of causality is correct. 
But Biran \Yas wrong in attempting to identify the will with per¬ 
sonality. The greatest error, however, was in neglecting the dis¬ 
tinction between the idea of causality and the principle of causal¬ 
ity. The former is developed in experience, while the latter is a 
truth to which reason is naturally subject. 

Cousin’s estimate of Biran’s theory of will is most carefully 
worked out in connection with an examination of Locke’s idea of 
power. In this connection Cousin shows the intimate relation 
between Locke and Biran. As the empirical character of Biran’s 
philosophy has been one of the main theses which we have tried 
to present, we have a double reason for looking at Cousin’s work : 
first, because it substantiates our general position, and secondly, 
because it shows the exact relation between Biran and eclecticism. 
Cousin’s view of Biran’s philosophy of will as well as his state¬ 
ment of its defects is brought out clearly in the following quota¬ 
tions : “ The distinguishing merit of M. de Biran is in having 
established that the will is the constituent characteristic of our 
personality. He has gone farther — too far, perhaps. As Locke 
confounded consciousness and memory with personality and iden¬ 
tity of self, M. de Biran has gone even so far as to confound the 
will with personality itself. It is certainly tfie eminent character¬ 
istic of it, so that the idea of cause, which is given in the con¬ 
sciousness of the productive will, is for that reason given in the 
consciousness of our personality.” 1 

“ In short, this cause, which is ourselves, is implied in every 
fact of consciousness. The necessary condition of every phenom¬ 
enon perceived by consciousness is that we pay attention to it. 
If we do not bestow our attention, the phenomenon may perhaps 
still exist, but the consciousness not connecting itself with it, and 
not taking knowledge of it, it is for us a non-existence. Atten¬ 
tion then is the condition of every appreciation of consciousness. 
Now attention, as I have more than once shown, is the will. The 
condition, then, of every phenomenon of consciousness, and of 
course of the first phenomenon, as of all others, is the will, and 
as the will is the causative power, it follows that in the first fact 

1 Elements of Psychology (trans. 4th ed. by C. S. Henry), p. 183. 


biran’s relation to subsequent thinkers 83 

of consciousness, and in order that this fact may take place, there 
must necessarily be the apperception of our own causality in the 
will, from whence it follows again that the idea of cause is the 
primary idea ; that the apperception of the voluntary cause which 
we ourselves are is the first of all apperceptions, and the condition 
of all others. 

“ Such is the theory to which M. de Biran has raised that of 
Locke. I adopt it. I believe that it perfectly accounts for the 
idea of cause. But it remains to inquire whether the idea of 
cause . . . suffices ... to explain the principle of causality. 
For Locke, who treats of the idea of cause, but never of the prin¬ 
ciple of causality, the problem did not even exist. M. de Biran, 
who scarcely proposes it, resolves it by far too rapidly, and arrives 
at once at a result, the only one permitted by Locke’s theory and 
by his own, but which sound psychology and sound logic cannot 
accept. 

“ According to M. de Biran, after we have derived the idea 
of cause from the sentiment of our own personal activity, in the 
phenomenon of effort, of which we are conscious, we transfer 
this idea outwardly; we project it into the external world, by virtue 
of an operation which, with Royer-Collard, he has called natural 
induction 1 But this view is unsatisfactory, because “The pe¬ 
culiar character of induction ... is ... in the contrast of the 
identity of the phenomenon or of the law, and of the diversity 
of the circumstances from which it is first derived and then trans¬ 
ferred. If, then, the knowledge of external causes is only an 
induction from our personal cause, it is in strictness our causal¬ 
ity, the voluntary and free cause which ourselves constitute, that 
should be transferred by induction into the external world. . . . 
From whence it follows that it is our own causality we should 
be obliged to suppose wherever a phenomenon begins to appear : 
that is to say, all the causes wh'ich we subsequently conceive are 
and can be nothing but our own personality.” 2 

This thought is developed still further to show the insuffi¬ 
ciency of Biran’s treatment of the principle of causality. “ The 

1 Op. cit., pp. 183-184. 

2 Ibid., pp. 185-186. 


8 4 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


belief in the external world and in external causes is universal 
and necessary; and the fact which explains it ought itself to be 
universal and necessary; if therefore our belief in the world and 
in external causes resolves itself into the assimilation of these 
causes to ours, this assimilation ought likewise to be universal 
and necessary. Now at this point I have recourse to psychol¬ 
ogy. . . . We all have a perfect conviction that the world ex¬ 
ists, that there are external causes. These causes we believe to 
be neither personal, nor intentional, nor voluntaiy. . . . But if 
this belief is universal and necessary, the judgment which in¬ 
cludes it and gives it ought to have a principle which is itself 
universal and necessary: and this principle is nothing else than 
the principle of causality. . . . Take away the principle of caus¬ 
ality, and whenever a phenomenon appeared upon the theater of 
consciousness, of which we were not the cause, there would no 
longer be a ground for our demanding a cause for the phenome¬ 
non. . . . But on the contrary, assume the principle of causality 
(as potentially existing in the mind), and as soon as the 
phenomenon of sensation begins to appear on the theater of con¬ 
sciousness, at the same instant the principle of causality (actu¬ 
ally unfolded and put in exercise by the occasion of the phe¬ 
nomenon), marks it with this character that it cannot but have 
a cause. Now as consciousness attests that this cause is not 
ourselves, and yet it remains not less certain that it must have a 
cause, it follows that there is a cause other than ourselves, and 
which is neither personal nor voluntary, and yet it is a cause, 
that is to say, a cause simply efficient.” 1 

Cousin finds a certain partial truth in Biran’s account of will 
but regards that account as inadequate. He says : “I admit, I 
am decidedly of the opinion that the consciousness of our own 
proper causality precedes any conception of the principle of 
causality, and of course precedes any application of that princi¬ 
ple, any knowledge of external causality.” 2 Genetically the 
knowledge of causality is discovered by an act of will. But the 
principle of causality is made logically prior to the particular 

1 Op. cit., pp. 187-189. 

2 Ibid., p. 190. 


biran’s relation to subsequent thinkers .8 5 

example of the principle in voluntary activity. Cousin works 
out the distinction as follows : “ The process by which in the 
depths of the mind the passage is made from the primary fact of 
consciousness to the ulterior fact of the conception of the prin¬ 
ciple is this. I wish to move my arm and I move it. . . . This 
fact, when analyzed, gives three elements : (i) Consciousness of a 
volition which is my own, which is personal; (2) a motion pro¬ 
duced ; (3) and finally, a reference of this motion to my will 
... a relation of production, of causation ; a relation too, which 
I no more call in question, than I do either of the other two 
terms, and without which the other two terms are not given ; so 
that the three terms are given in one single and indivisible fact, 
which fact is the consciousness of my personal causality. . . . 

“ This fact . . . is characterized by being particular, individual, 
determinate. . . . Again, it is characteristic of everything par¬ 
ticular and determinate, to be susceptible of the degrees of more 
or less. I myself, a voluntary cause, have at such a moment 
more or less energy, which makes the motion produced by me 
have more or less force. But does the feeblest motion pertain 
any less to me than the most energetic ? Is there between the 
the cause, myself, and the effect, motion, a less relation in the 
one case than in the other ? Not at all, the two terms may 
vary, and do vary perpetually in intensity, but the relation does 
not vary. Still further, the two terms . . . may even not exist 
at all. . . . But the relation between these two determinate, vari¬ 
able, and contingent terms, is neither variable nor contingent. It is 
universal and necessary. The moment the consciousness seizes 
these two terms, the reason seizes their relation, and by an im¬ 
mediate abstraction which needs not the support of a great num¬ 
ber of similar facts, it disengages the invariable and necessary 
element of the fact from its variable and contingent elements. 

. . Reason, then, is subject to this truth, it is under an impos¬ 
sibility of not supposing a cause, whenever the senses or the 
consciousness reveal any motion or phenomenon. Now this im¬ 
possibility, to which the reason is subjected, of not supposing a 
cause for every phenomenon, ... is what we call the principle 
of causality. . . . Now it is with the principle of causality as 


86 , 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


with other principles; never would the human mind have con¬ 
ceived it in its universality and necessity, if at first there had not 
been given us a particular fact of causation ; and this primitive 
and particular fact is that of our own proper and personal caus¬ 
ality, manifested to the consciousness in an effort, in a voluntary 
act. But this does not suffice of itself wholly to explain the 
knowledge of external causes, because we should have to regard 
external causes as only an induction from our own causality.” 1 

The extended quotations already given and the importance of 
the subject alike require that we should look at the passage in 
which Cousin sums up his criticism of Biran. It is as follows : 
“ Gifted with extraordinary psychological insight, M. de Biran 
penetrated so far into the intimacy of the fact of consciousness 
by which the first idea of cause is given, that he scarcely disen¬ 
gaged himself from that fact and that idea, and neglected too 
much the principle of causality ; thus confounding, as Locke 
has done, the antecedent of a principle with the principle itself; 
or when he attempted to explain the principle of causality, he 
explained it by a natural induction which transfers to the external 
world consciousness, the will and all the peculiar attributes of 
his model; confounding in this way a particular, transient, and 
erroneous application of the principle of causality, with the prin¬ 
ciple in itself. . . . The theory of M. de Biran is the develop¬ 
ment of the theory of Locke. It reproduces that theory with 
more extent and profoundness, and exhausts at once both its 
merits and its defects.” 1 

While the question of the relation of Cousin to Biran is logic¬ 
ally distinct from the question concerning Cousin’s estimate of 
his debt to his predecessor, I believe they are practically coinci¬ 
dent. If this is correct, in the view that the idea of causality 
becomes explicit in the fact of volition, that is, that it is genetic¬ 
ally (though not logically) derived from the act of will, we have 
the important thought which Cousin accepted from Biran’s theory 
of will. Taking causality as a typical example, it may be said 
that while Biran derives the intellectual categories from a psy- 

1 Op. cit ., pp. 190-194. 

2 Ibid., p. 197. 


biran’s relation to subsequent thinkers 87 

chological fact, Cousin makes them universal laws of reason. A 
general view of Cousin’s treatment of causality suggests the con¬ 
clusion that Biran’s influence on early eclecticism has been over¬ 
emphasized. 

Passing from the system which stands in closest relation to 
Biran’s work to that which is most antithetical, positivism, we 
can dismiss our subject much more briefly. We have here no 
extended criticism for examination, and need only note the 
divergence in method and in general attitude to philosophical 
questions. We have, then, not so much to trace a relation as to 
show the absence of any intimate relation between Biran and 
Comte. Biran, we have seen, was individualistic in attitude and 
pursued a psychological method. Comte, on the other hand, 
was socialistic in attitude and employed a method which was de¬ 
rived from and suited to include the other sciences, but which left 
no place for psychology in Biran’s sense of that term. It is un¬ 
necessary to carry the comparison further. The contrasted posi¬ 
tions will be shown by a notice of Comte’s views on some ques¬ 
tions which we have seen were important for Biran. 

With Comte any attempt to seek for a metaphysical basis from 
which the postulates of the various sciences could be deduced 
marked a return to a more primitive method of thought. He 
could consequently have no sympathy with a system like that of 
Biran which was founded on an ultimate fact discovered in ex¬ 
perience. For positivism science is its own end; and any law 
of the relation of the sciences must be discovered in the history 
of scientific development rather than in some isolated fact. 
Starting with this view of “the powerlessness of metaphysical 
methods for the study of moral and intellectual phenomena,” 
Comte notes the general “absurdity of the supposition of a man 
seeing himself think.” He then finds further difficulties in the 
method of “ interior observation .” “ It is at once evident that no 

function can be studied but with relation to the organ that ful¬ 
fils it, or to the phenomena of its fulfilment: and in the second 
place, that the affective functions, and yet more the intellectual, 
exhibit in the latter respect this particular characteristic — that 
they cannot be observed during their operation, but only in their 


88 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


results, more or less immediate and more or less durable.” The 
psychological method does not study the organic conditions nor 
the intellectual acts, and thus by neglecting “ both the agent and 
the act,” it is lost in “ an unintelligible conflict of words, in which 
merely nominal entities are substituted for real phenomena.” 
We have seen that Biran also often speaks against the substitu¬ 
tion of abstractions for realities, and it is necessary to see clearly 
what is meant. Biran’s ultimate reality, the self discovered in 
effort, is for Comte merely a “ nominal entity,” while agent is 
made equivalent to “ organic condition.” 

Comte objects further to the “ radical separation which it was 
thought necessary to make between brutes and man” and “the 
necessity that the metaphysicians found themselves under, of 
preserving the unity of what they call the I, that it might corre¬ 
spond with the unity of the soul” For “it is probable that 
among the superior animals the sense of personality is still more 
marked than in man, on account of their more isolated life.” 1 

It might seem to the casual observer that there is one resem¬ 
blance between the systems, in the fact that positivism makes the 
affective, prior to the intellectual, life. But even this point of 
similarity is not valid, because Biran sharply distinguishes will 
and desire. We may say then that Biran had no influence on 
positivism. 

Having considered Maine de Biran’s relation to eclecticism 
and to positivism, we shall conclude by noting the estimate in 
which he is held by contemporary writers. First, let us see how 
he fits into Renouvier’s historical scheme. The neo-critic thinks 
that both eclecticism and positivism were inadaquate reactions 
against the philosophy of the eighteenth century. The former 
sought to rediscover the “ lofty philosophical traditions ” of the 
seventeenth century, the latter aimed at their “ total abandonment 
confident of replacing them by a more certain method.” But 
neither was alive to “ the necessity of studying the nature of the 
principles of knowledge .” 2 

Biran was a true child of his time. Although he passed with 


1 Martineau, Comte's Positive Philosophy, Vol. I, pp. 331, 334. 

2 Histoire et solution des problevies metaphysiques , pp. 415-417. 


biran’s relation to subsequent thinkers 89 

the eclectics as the discoverer of Leibnitz, he really emphasized 
only the principle of activity, while he did not even understand 
the doctrine of preestablished harmony . 1 Still retaining his 
realistic position, he made the will a force of our own “ of which 
we have at the same time thought and external perception with 
the certitude of its action, as a cause producing organic move¬ 
ment” 2 

It is easy to see how slight Biran’s influence has been on neo¬ 
criticism. Both Biran and Renouvier are strenuous advocates 
of free will. But for the former it is a fact given in experience, 
which we cannot doubt any more than we can doubt the existence 
of the self. Renouvier, on the other hand, “ rests the thesis of 
free will, not with the eclectics on the vain affirmation of an inner 
experience which we have of it, a confusion between the real 
experience of our feeling on this point and the experience which 
it is necessary we should have and which we never do have of the 
relation of this feeling with the truth,” but on a psychological 
analysis of the act of deliberation, on the evident fallacy in 
employing the principle of contradiction to prove that all future 
events are determined, and on a study of the concept of cause . 3 
We are forced to conclude that Biran had very little direct 
influence on the work of Renouvier. 

We will consider one more estimate of Biran, made by another 
contemporary writer on will philosophy. Fouillee speaks of Biran 
as the one who reestablished dynamism in man and nature “ but 
under the doubtful form of motor force ” and who “ had only a 
very mystical idea ” of “ the sphere of ideal freedom.” He says : 
“ much of French philosophy agrees with Maine de Biran and 
with German philosophy in supposing that beyond logical mech¬ 
anism and sensible reality there is a region of freedom which is 
at the same time a region of love understood in the true sense.” 4 

It is clear, however, that Fouillee does not accept the theory 
of a “ true motor force,” as Biran employed the term, for he 
criticises an error of the “ partisans of the objectivity of the self.” 

1 Cf. op. cit., p. 414. 

* Ibid., pp. 45 6 - 457 - 

3 Cf. ibid, pp. 437 - 43 8 - 

4 La liberte et le determinisme, p. 341. 


9 o 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


They confuse the two meanings of the “idea of the self” which 
can stand for either “the reflective idea of the self” which “is 
only a distinct manifestation of our thought, and contrasted with 
our existence ” or “ the immediate consciousness of being, of sen¬ 
sation, and of thought.” 1 Fouillee finds that “ the most that can 
be accorded to man, is simply a vague consciousness of force or 
universal will which acts in us as in others, this pretended con¬ 
sciousness of the universal is without doubt only a pure idea.” 
“ If we thus have consciousness of any freedom, it is not of our 
individual freedom, but of freedom of absolute unity superior to 
our own individuality. In this case I am free precisely where I 
am no longer self. While as a self ‘ as a being distinct and deter¬ 
minate, I am determined both in my action and in my existence, 
I am caught in the net of universal determinism.” 2 

When we compare this quotation with Biran’s idea of freedom, 
we cannot claim that Fouillee with his doctrine of the “ force of 
the idea of freedom ” as a means of reconciliation between liberty 
and determinism, really owes any considerable debt to the earlier 
philosopher. 

1 Op. cit ., p. 77. 

2 Ibid., pp. 90-91. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Works of Maine de Biran. 

Nouvelle considerations sur les rapports du physique et du morale de 
1 'homme, 1834. CEuvres philosophiques , 1841. Publiees par V. 
Cousin. 

Pensees, 1857, 3d ed., 1877. CEuvres inedites, 3 vols., 1859. 1 Publiees 
par E. Naville. 

Nouvelles oeuvres inedites, 1887.* Lettres inedites de Maine de Biran a 
Andre-Marie Ampere in the Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale 
for 1893. Publiees par A. Bertrand. 

Opinion de M. Maine de Biran, Depute de la Dordogne sur la 
proposition de M. de Serre, in the Moniteur of February 14, 1818. 

Works Concerning Maine de Biran. 

J. Simon. Maine de Biran, in the Revue des deux mondes, Nov., 1841. 

C. A. Sainte-Beuve. Maine de Biran, in Causeries du lundi, Vol. XIII, 
304-323. 1857. 

A. Nicolas. Etude sur Maine de Biran, 1858. 

Henri Baudrillart. Maine de Biran in Publicistes mod ernes, pp. 175-189, 
1863. 

0. Merten. Etude critique sur Maine de Biran, 1865. 

Elie de Biran. Etude sur les oeuvres philosophiques de Maine de Biran, 
1868.* 

Ad. Franck. Maine de Biran, in Moralistes et philosophes, pp. 273-289, 
2d ed., 1874. 

Gerard. La philosophie de Maine de Biran, 1876.* 

Paul Janet. Un philosophe spiritualiste au XIXe siecle in Les maitres de la 
pensee moderne, 1883. 

Ferraz. Maine de Biran in Spiritualisme et lib'eralisme, 2d ed., 1887. 

H. Taine. Maine de Biran in Les philosophes classiques du XIXe siecle en 
France, pp. 48-78, 6th ed., 1888. 

Picavet. Philosophie de Biran de Van IX a Van XI (Orleans), 1888.* 

Caro. Histoire d'une ame sincere in Melanges et portraits, 1888. 

A. Bertrand. La psychologie de Veffort, 1889.* 

L. G. Konig. Der franzosische Kant in Philosophise he Monatshefte, Vol. 
XXV, 1889. 

1 In the third volume Debrit gives a valuable catalogue of Biran’s writings. 

The works marked with asterisk (*), I have, unfortunately, not had an oppor¬ 
tunity to consult. 

91 


92 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S PHILOSOPHY 


C. Favre. Essai sur Mame de Biran, 1889. 

E. Rostan. La religion de Mame de Biran, 1890.* 

L. Marillier. Maine de Biran, 1893.* 

A. Lang. Mt •<? de Biran und die neuere Philosophic, 1901. 

A. Kuhtmann. r xine de Biran, 1901. 

Compare also .he following : 

Damiron. Essai sur P histoire de la philosophic en France au XIXe siecle, 
3d ed., 1834. 

F. Ravaisson. Philosophic contemporaine in Revue des deux mondes 

November, 1840. 

F. Ravaisson. La philosophic en France au XIXe siecle, 1867, 3d ed., 

1889. 

A. Lemoine. /’ Ame et le corps, 1852.* 

Paul Janet. Le spiritualisme francais au XIXe siecle in Revue des deux 
mondes. May, 1868. 

C. Adam. La philosophic en France ( premiere moitie du XIXe siecle), 1894. 
Levy-Bruhl. History of Modern Philosophy in France, 1899. 

The following authors have also been referred to in this 

MONOGRAPH. 

Beaulavon. Article Sensualisme in La grande eticyclopedie. 

Condillac. Traite des sensations (Ch. Houel, Paris, 1798). 

V. Cousin. History of Modern Philosophy (trans. by O. W. Wight). 

V. Cousin. Elements of Psychology (trans. by C. S. Henry). 

Fouillee. La liberte et le determinisme, 

Hamilton. Lectures. 

Hume. Treatise of Human Nature (Selby-Bigge). 

Hume. Enquiries (Selby-Bigge). 

Kant. Critique of Pure Reason (trans. by Max Muller). 

Locke. Essay Concerning Human Understanding. 

Martineau. Compte's Positive Philosophy. 

Reid. Collected Writings (8th ed. by Hamilton, 1880). 

Renouvier. Histoire et solution des problemes Metaphysiques. 

Seth. Scottish Philosophy. 

G. Tarde. Inter-psychology in International Quarterly, Vol,. VII, No. 1. 


INDEX. 


Ancillon, 15, n. 

Beaulavon, 6 
Bertrand, 26 

Cabanis, 3, 12 

Causality, 18, 25, 29, 30, 32-35, 38, 39, 

44 , 49 , 53 , 55 , 57 , 61, 66, 67, 79, 
80, 82-86 

efficient and physical, 67 
* psychical, 35 

Comte, 87 

Condillac, 3, 4, 6, 14, 15, 28, 29, 39, 
60, 68, 71 

definition of will, 10 
statute 9, 10, 69, 70 
Cousin, 1, 6, 37, 81-87 

Deduction, 65, 66 
Descartes, 18, 28, 29, 73 
Desire, 9, 10, 14, 17, 34 
and will, 36, 88 

Emotions, 72-73 

classification of, 49 

Favre, 3 
Fouillee, 89-90 

Freedom, 3, 8, 36, 37, 67, 73, 79, 81, 
89, 90 

Gerando, 15, n. 

God’s existence, proof of, 79-80 

Habituation, 34, 47, 48, 52, 53, 62 
Hamilton, 38-39 

Human vs. merely sentient life, 40-42, 

44, 46, 88 

Hume, 18, 21, 33, 34, 35, 62, 63 
Idealogy, 12 

Ideas of reflection vs. logical abstractions, 
37 - 38 , 56 - 57 , 62-65, 77 
Imitation, not the principle of art, 76 
Induction, 62, 83 

Kant, 1, 15, 18 
Konig, 17 

Kiihtmann, 15, n., 39 


Lang, 35 ~ 

Language, 61, 62, 64, 65 
Laromiguiere, 2 
LeibnitE, 2, 28 
Levy Bruhl, 17 
Localization in space, 55 
Locke, 6-9, 11, 14, 18, 36, 38, 39, 48, 
60, 71, 82, 83, 86 

Max Muller, 16, n. 

Memory, 45, 48, 49, 56, 61, 62, 66, 70, 
82, 

Merten, 4 

Movement, 26, 34, 50, 60, 70, 85 
classification of, 25 
Mysticism, 6, 79-80, 89 

Napoleon, Biraffis relation to, 1 
Naville, 2, 5, 18, 78 
Picavet, 6 

Pleasantness^and*unpleasantness, 9, 14, 
17, 41, 69, 87, 88 
sesthetical significance of, 75, 77 
cause of, 44 

ethical import of, 73, 74 
no memory of, 61 
Reason, 62-68, 85 

Reid, 18-21 
Renouvier, 88-89 
Royer-Collard, 83 

Sciences, 32, 37, 38, 46, 62, 66, 67, 87 

Seth, 18 

Skepticism, 6, 18, 21, 35 

Stewart, 18 

Stoicism, idea of world soul in, 54 
value of, 78, 79 

Taine, 57, n, 

Tarde, 5 

Time, 16, 36 

Touch, sense of, 14, 32, 45, 52, 55, 56, 
7 °> 75 

in Condillac’s system, 10, 11, 70 

de Tracy, 12 


93 


LB My ’08 


MAINE DE BIRAN’S 
PHILOSOPHY OF WILL 


A THESIS 

Presented to the University Faculty of Cornell University 
for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 


NATHAN ELBERT TRUMAN, A.M. 



Neto ¥Qtk 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 





































































* « 









































































